Little British Bird
by switchonlights
Summary: After Afghanistan, John is all Allie has, but even that is rapidly disappearing. Caught between fear and insanity with the Government on her tail, it's all she can do to try to fly away and find some comfort in Sherlock's London: a town she's never known.
1. Chapter 1

**Four Years Previously:**

_Bullets ricochet. _

_ "John! John?" _

_ The sun beast down onto the girl's helmet. _

_ "Over here!" _

_ She worms on her stomach through the sand, rifle held tightly in her hands. _

_ "John," she whispers, pulling herself behind the smoldering wreckage of the hummer. John is tending to a man with a large piece of shrapnel in his leg._

_ "Here, hold down on that. Don't let up." He takes the girl's hands and guides them to the blood soaked bandage that plaster the man's calf. All the noise seems to vanish, leaving the girl hearing only John talking. Blood keeps gushing, the soaked bandage isn't helping. After a moments hesitation, Wombat strips off her jacket and shirt, holding the white tee over the bandages. With quick, practiced movements, John wraps a piece of elastic above the sergeants knee to form a tourniquet. _

_ "Is he out?" Wombat whispers. She looks so vulnerable, the petite girl, squatting on her heels in the Afghan desert, army pants and a bra._

_ "Hit on the head." John sighs, placing his fingers on the mans neck. "Damn it! I'm calling it." _I'm calling it. _Words said out of habit, not needed deep into the red zone. _

_ She sighs and pulls her jacket back on over her bra, zipping it up. A rough pair of hands jerks her around, and she's staring into the face of the lieutenant colonel. _

_ "Get up and do your job!" he orders. Noise floods back into her brain: bullets and yelling._

_ Wombat jerks backwards. _

_ "She's fifteen!" John yells, outraged. _

_ "We've done our jobs keeping her safe! Now it's her turn!" _

_ John begins to argue, but Wombat shakes her head. She looks almost calm. _

_ It was what John has feared from the moment he was assigned to this unit: she has accepted her fate. _

_ "It's fine John. They're right. It's time for me to do my job." She rises to her feet, rifle in hand, bullets flying all around her. "It's my job."_

* * *

><p>Wombat likes running. It helps her feel like she is outrunning bad dreams, leading them on an impossible goose chase down Baker Street. She pushes open the peeling door of 221b and hurries up the stairs to the top flat of 221e. But as she's passing the open door of the former flat, an all too familiar voice pulls at her attention. With a shriek, she throws herself at back of the short man.<p>

"Oh my God! No, no Sherlock it's okay!" John laughs, out of breath from the girl's sudden impact.

Wombat's laugh fills the air and she puts her feet back on the ground. "John!"

"Wombat! What are you doing here?"

"I live here!"

"Here? As in, the attic?"

"Hey, don't be rude to my flat!"

"Oh, uh, Wombat, this is Sherlock Holmes, my flatmate."

They shake hands, and the girl turns to Watson. "Let me go get changed, and we should go get coffee."

She dashes out of the room, heading towards her original destination.

While no Helen of Troy, Allie Lark is, nonetheless, exceptionally pretty. She sits on the floor of her apartment in front of a mirror and brushes out her pin-straight chestnut hair. A thin, heart shaped face housed delicately green almond shaped eyes. Her face could hold the same sharpness as Sherlock, however the hardships of what she's been through have left her vulnerable and wary. Her mania of earlier has subsided, leaving her quiet and contemplative as she concentrates on running the brush through unruly strands and blocking out monsters.

"Wombat!" John calls up the stairs. "Are you ready yet?"

Setting the brush down, she slides on her bum out onto the landing. Staring up at her from the doorway of his apartment, John is surprised. He's never seen her in civilian clothes: tight jeans, knee high boots, an oversized jumper. She looks truly like an Allie in that moment: something dainty and sweet, not a mad man's plaything.

John realizes he spoke to loudly and lowers his voice to a near whisper, so as not to spook the ghost of a girl, the one that wasn't there half an hour before. "Do you want to go get some lunch?" He leans forward to kneel on the stairs and hold out a hand to her. "You look thin."

She smiles a ghost of a smile and takes his hand.

"What happened after they transferred you?" John asks as they dig into takeout boxes of cheap noodles. They sit on a bench in Kensington Gardens, John sitting normally and Wombat facing his profile.

"Got sent to Pakistan to work with the Americans."

John doesn't miss the slight infliction on Pakistan and Americans. It tells him what she can't without endangering him.

"Did it involve a team with the number six?"

"Eventually. I ran a lot of spy stuff first." She talks with a hand covering her full mouth, then swallows before continuing. "That's what I'm doing back in the country. They thought more domestic issues would be better. Well, they wanted to keep me over there, but a man, my benefactor I suppose, convinced them otherwise. It wasn't a moment too soon either."

John mutters something intelligible (but still obviously sarcastic) and they eat in silence for a few moment. The girl can hear only cars rushing by and wind in the trees; she's not having to work to stay sane. John does that for her, keeps the bad things away, a bit like a father checking in his daughter's closet for monsters.

"Was it getting bad?"

"Anyone starts to go crazy," she says after a moments thought. "That much pressure, that much violence. That much hate for so long. It makes anyone start to go wrong in the head."

"So bad. Will they let you see a therapist?" John stares at her, trying to coax her out from where she's picking at her noodles with chopsticks.

She looks up and gives a weak smile. "With the things I have flying around in my head? Not bloody likely."


	2. Chapter 2

_A child in a war zone. Well, not a child. By societies standards, she should be both a woman and a child. But when she's doing something like this, it's easiest to pretend it's a game, like hide-n-seek. _

_ Kick-stab-kick. _

_ Pull trigger._

_ Duck-punch-elbow-down-swipe._

_ Pull trigger. _

_ She moves, swifter than a ghost and visible as air, and makes her way through all five men in the house. On her unseen face is a look of blank concentration. It's a job, a reflex. There's no choice to whether or not it should be done: killing security threats -the ones who blew her convoy- to protect her family. _

_ She leaves the house, brain bursting with information gleaned from the minds of the men that now lie dead on the floor, rotting in their own blood. _

_ There wasn't a bullet wasted. _

_ The hummer that wasn't destroyed by the explosion is waiting two miles away. It carries four survivors and as many corpses. Wombat climbs in, letting the light hit her once more. Bouncing back. Making her visible. Her gore spattered forehead sinks against the hot fabric of the passenger seat as the vehicle jerks into motion. _

_ She's tired. It wears you out, saps your energy. But at this point in time, there are no tears. _

_ After all, she tells herself, it's just a game._

* * *

><p>John would do anything for Wombat (and the other way around) so it was no surprise that the next time Mycroft comes around, John is on him instantly.<p>

"What do you know about a girl named Allie Lark?"

"Never hear of her."

John sighs in frustration and grabs the back of the armchair. "Operative Wombat."

_ "_Oh?" Mycroft's eyebrows go up in surprise. "Tsk. Did she tell you?"

"I served with her for three years before her transfer. I would think you of all people would know that."

"Very few are privileged to any information when it comes to Operative Wombat. No records are kept of her protection unit. Though, this does explain why she was so angry when we transferred her. I suppose you took care of her."

"Through thick and thin."

The voice comes from the doorway, causing the two men to jump. Neither of them have noticed Wombat's silent trek up the stairs.

"Mr Holmes, so nice of you to join us. I brought take away." She pushes away from where she has been leaning of the doorframe and drops the plastic bag of food on the coffee table before plopping onto the couch and dragging the large paper bag Mycroft had brought in with him over with her foot.

The dress within it is a lovely shade of dove grey. It has a embroidered corset top that laced in the back, and a skirt made of different layers of lace. Though front ends at mid thighs, the back falls to the floor. It screams sex appeal.

Wombat shrugs and let the dress fall back into the bag before breaking open the chow mien.

"Well?"

"There's a masked ball at...well," the elder Holmes shoots a glance towards John. "A location Wednesday evening. Your job is to simply make sure none of the high risk profiles are planning anything."

"Bo-ring," Wombat sings. "But the dress I like. Who picked it out?"

"My secretary."

John stares in disbelief at the exchange; she treats it like it's so normal, as if it is a daily happening.

"John," the girl turns around and smiles. "Stop staring and eat your chicken. And don't worry. I have a job and I do it and I'm safe."

"She is the best," Mycroft added.

"Who will be my escort?" Wombat yawns, stretching with the chopsticks and food in her hands. Her shirt pulls up to show a very pale strip of too thin stomach.

"My brother."

Her face falls. In the week she's lived at Baker she's come to know all of Sherlock's many, unpredictable moods.

"Though I hate to admit it, my brother's skills are necessary in this situation. There's been talk of trouble."

"And a man with the emotional stability of a toddler and a shell-shocked Saloon Girl are going to prevent that."

As soon as Mycroft leaves, John turns to the girl sprawled in his armchair.

"_Mycroft Holmes_ is your benefactor?"

"I didn't make the connection between the names until just now, but I suppose he is _quite _similar to Sherlock."

John mutters something about sending girls out onto dangerous missions, and Wombat gave him another accommodating smile.

"I'm nineteen John, been doing this for years. I'll be fine."

"See, Wom, you say that, and then you'll get quiet and jumpy and it'll be harder for you to control it! You'll start screaming again and you'll get overwhelmed and it's hard enough for me without having to worry about you!"

She blinks at his sudden outburst, and hurt fills her eyes as she stands, face smooth. "You should've just said so. It's London John, I'll find another flat in an instant, and you can forget about me."

Instantly, he regrets his harsh words, and grabs her arm, tugging her into a hug.

"All I'm saying, is I don't want them to hurt you again."

Wombat rests her chin on his shoulder and shakes her head. "They wouldn't dare."


	3. Chapter 3

_She can hear everything they're thinking. _

Would it kill them to ship in women's toiletries?

Damn, I miss my girl.

I wonder what's for lunch.

_Some are so much worse, filled with screaming and bad memories._

_So many thoughts, all pouring into her mind, and she's unable to shut them out. John sees her, sitting curled up on her cot, hands pressed vainly over her ears. _

_ "Wombat?" _

_ No response._

_ "Allie...Alexandra!" _

_ She can't hear him over the tumult of noise in her mind. John sits next to her and pulls her into a hug, just like he used to do with Harry. _

_ "Make it stop John."_

_ "I wish I could." And he means it: he would take it all from her if he could. "I'm trying to get you out of here. I promise."_

* * *

><p>Wednesday evening, Allie flies barefoot down the stairs. "Mrs Hudson?"<p>

She holds the grey dress on with one hand, the corseted back flopping open.

"Yes dear?"

"Could you lace this for me? It has to be tight."

The landlady bites back a comment on how Allie's spine is too visible and tugs at the grey ribbon that winds through the rivets.

"It's a lovely dress."

"Mhm. I have a party this evening." A swift exhale as the laces are pulled tightly and secured in a bow. "Masked ball."

The outside door opens and John enters, plastic bag of groceries spilling a few drops of captured water onto the rug. He catches sight of Allie: her dark hair curled and caught half-up and secured with a black headband shut with a rhinestone clasp. The dress falls perfectly to the floor in the back, creating a small train, and in the front it is just long enough to conceal the gun strapped to her upper thigh. John isn't the type to notice the way her breasts are shoved up by the corset of the way the knee-high lace up boots lengthen her legs, especially on this girl, but the desired effect was there: With a mask on, no one will doubt she was anything but royalty.

"God, Wombat..." John trails off in disbelief. "I suppose Mycroft's secretary knows what she's doing. Oh, and the limo's outside."

"Cheers."

She disappears upstairs and comes back a few moments later with a faux fur stole wrapped around her shoulders and a pearl grey mask and clutch in her hand.

"Sherlock? You ready? We need to go!"

The Consulting Detective appears at the top of the stairs, looking immensely uncomfortable (and handsome) in a tuxedo. John bids them farewell as they slide into the provided limo. Beautiful clothes don't prevent ugly things from happening.

John wakes early the next morning before heading into the kitchen to make some coffee. To his surprise, Sherlock is at the table, head in his hands.

"Sherlock? You all right?"

His flatmate groans, and it was then that John spots the dark pool of liquid on the top of the table.

"Are you bleeding? Sherlock, answer me! Are you okay?"

He is still in the tux from the night before, but there is a long slash up one sleeve, and the white shirt is covered in dirt.

"I don't know where she is John," Sherlock moans. "She disappeared. I lost her."

"What?" John turns from where he was rummaging in the cabinet for first aid supplies. Sherlock didn't reply.

It isn't until two hours of worry and unresponsiveness from Sherlock later that the front door opens and Wombat slips in, hair damp with sweat and hanging lankly around her face. Her dress is torn in many places, the hem caked in mud. Ignoring John's exclamations, she pushes passed him and into the bathroom, unable to make it to her own before vomit makes it's way up her throat. John stands in the doorway, hesitant to move closer to her. After a moment, she turns and leans against the sink, staring at the wall opposite her.

"G'morning John," Wombat croaks, brushing hair out of her face. "Sleep well?"

Exhaustion covers her face and hangs under her eyes, the bags barely visible under the layer of grim.

John begins to respond, but she turns over and begins to throw up again. This time, he steps forward to twist her hair back from her face, then help her up.

_ "_Help me get this thing off." she winces, holding a hand to her left side. "Broken ribs..."

The shower comes on and John unlaces the corset. "Get in, I'll bring you some clean clothes."

He shuts the door behind him and comes face to face with Sherlock.

"Is she alright?"

"What happened Sherlock?" John pushes passed his flatmate when he doesn't respond and up the stairs to the top of the building.

Wombat's flat is much smaller than 221b, and it only takes him a moment to find clean clothes. Looking around the room with it's messy foldout bed and kitchenette, he's reminded how much he doesn't know about the girl's past, and there are no clue to give him any hints. Boxes were still scattered around, and there was an army issue duffle thrown by the bookcase. _Alice in Wonderland. Harry Potter. Rebecca. _She liked stories, but that of course was nothing new. No posters on the wall, no nothing. A riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a girl with super powers.


	4. Chapter 4

_Allie sits in the mess hall in an undershirt and pants,_ _hair damp from a shower. Her dog tags clink as she leans over her book, forgetting her tray of food. They aren't normal dog tags, if you look closely the engraving only holds _Operative 916361222181_. Two years have passed since she last saw John, and she sits alone, more Allie than Wombat: a circle around her where people don't dare sit. The only comfort she has is down by the bay of Manderly, or at the tea party with the Hatter and Hare. She doesn't stick out so much anymore: it's easier for people to believe that she's eighteen. But still, on a base full of Americans, she's the outsider. _

_ With a heavy sigh, she stands, turning down the corner to mark her page. Food doesn't appeal to her now; after today's mission she just wants to go sleep. The base she's on is small, covert, and there are no lights outside of the mess tent. The night air is cool, and stars kiss her skin as she moves to the sleeping tent. _

_ Something swift moves in the shadows causing her to shift the balls of her feet the best she can in heavy boots. Rough hands grab her, and pin her to a siren post. _

_ "A pretty little British mouse," a voice says. "Out wandering all alone at night." _

_ A hot mouth presses to hers as she struggles, and horror stories about female soldiers getting raped flash through her mind. A knee to the groin -causing the man to groan and spit out profanities- and then she vanishes, the action so instinctual, such a self-defense that there is no thought behind it. _

_ She's a pretty little British bird, flying away as fast as she can._

* * *

><p>There's no pain anymore. She's floating over a hardwood floor, towards an armchair with Sherlock sprawled in it. The silence is welcome; there is no blood, no screaming. The world is clean and white and perfectly silent. She sitting in the chair now. When did she get here? Half on the mans leg, half in the empty space.<p>

Are there words? There might be words, she decides, trying to reach her ear and sink into her brain, but at the moment, she's not in the mood to hear them.

Sleep tugs down at her eyes, and she lets it wrap her in a soft blanket, lets it pull her head onto the bony shoulder of Sherlock. White is now black, but there is still silence, so it doesn't matter. But then it changes. She's standing in a field, grass swaying, sky a perfect, uniform shade of grey. Bodies. So many bodies, weighing down the grass, spilling blood into the soil. The clouds above her let loose, and there's a crack of thunder.

No...gunfire...

Bullets. It's raining bullets. So hard and so fast that everyone of them shoots into her, sending lead into here bloodstream, weighing her down.

There's no more silence.

She's screaming. People are yelling. She's in an armchair, with Sherlock hovering over her, his face almost concerned. Stumbling upwards, she pushes passed Sherlock, passed John yelling at Mycroft, passed a Mrs Hudson -hand pressed her chest in worry- and into the kitchen. Water, as cold as it can be, is pouring over her head from a tap, and she's staring at the stainless steel of the sink.

Long fingered hands grab her shoulders and pull her backwards, out of the flow of the water. Sherlock shoves her into a chair at the table, leaving her hair dripping onto the linoleum.

There's so much sound.

"You can't keep throwing her into those places Mycroft!" John yells. "She can't handle it. What you put her through already was more than enough!"

The sound of water pooling on the floor from her hair.

"I-"

"This is what happens when you throw a fourteen year old girl into a battle zone!"

Words pour into her mind from thoughts of others.

_Oh dear, what's John got himself into again? And poor Allie! _

_ I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL THE GOVERNMENT. _

_ If John would only let me speak...I am doing the best I can for the girl. _

And then blessed silence. It's as if she is stuck in a dead space between the world and the fourth mind in the room, something she can't penetrate.

She looks up from her shaking hands, and makes eye contact with Sherlock. His eyes are wide, curious. He watches as her lips move noiselessly, trying to collect her thoughts.

In the bliss of silence, she moves to the fridge to chug the rest of the milk.

Sherlock feels something move away from his mind.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"I-I didn't believe it yesterday...when you vanished..."

"No one ever does."

"Look, John!" Mycroft exclaims, a note of desperation in his voice. "She's fine."

"Allie-"

John's face is lined with worry; he looks more exhausted than he did in Afghanistan.

"John, John. It's fine. I'm fine."

"That's bullshit Allie!"

"But it's all I can tell you."


	5. Chapter 5

The rift between John and Allie seems to be infinitely wider than the distance between John's armchair, and where she sits on the ground next to Sherlock's chair, waiting for Mycroft to finish an important call.

John puts a hand over his face.

Allie shifts, hugging her arms tighter around her legs.

"Well Miss Lark, would you and my dear brother like to explain to me about last night?"

"Not particularly, but I will." she sighs. "It- it was about thirty minutes into the party-"

"Forty-three." The bored voice comes from above her.

"Forty-three minutes into the party. Everything was going fine: I could hear, but it wasn't overwhelming, and there were no dangerous murmurs. Then, the gun went off.

"It was chaos. I ran over to where the shot was fired, but there was no one there. No one had been hurt. It seem the shot had just been fired to cause panic, and indeed it did. The gallery was empty, the gala over. Even security had vanished. Disappearing, I went to try and find who I suppose was a burglar. Sherlock too, was lingering in the shadows in the adjacent gallery where they were trying to snatch some Tudor portraits. It would've been easy to incapacitate them, but Mr Just-Because-I'm-Smart-I-Can-Do-Anything moved..."

And so she talks, relating to Mycroft and John the story of how the robbers were so much more than they had anticipated, running and cornering the duo, and forcing them to separate to survive:

_"Sherlock, we've got to split up. I'll lead them off, you run, get back to Baker street."_

_ "John would kill me."_

_ "Fuck John. I can take care of myself." _

_ "You only have seven more rounds."_

_ "There are only six more men." She quieted, and pressed herself against the alley wall, then began again as the danger passed. "Look, Sherlock, there are things you don't know, or have refused to accept, and I swear I'll explain them when it's light and these people are taken care of, but for now you just have to-" _

_ A figure appeared in the mouth of the alley, and Sherlock whirled, trapping Wombat between himself and the wall, shielding the both of them with his black clothes in a moonless night. For a moment, he felt her forehead lean against his collarbone where it ran through his shoulder. She seemed to be gathering herself, preparing for more. _

_ Then she was no more. _

_There was a gunshot, and the thud of a body. _

_ Sherlock was attacked twice more on his way back to Baker street, and made it in the door shaken as he had ever been. It had taken Wombat the rest of the night to track down the rest of the crew and kill them. Fourteen deaths in one mission: more than she had ever done. _

"Well, did you get anything?" Mycroft pushes. Allie groans and tips her head back.

"They were Ukrainian. Here in town to boost some portraits, hock 'em on the black market and get out before we were any wiser. But...they were more determined than your average art thief. There was extra motivation behind their murder."

"Probably working for the new syndicate that we've been hearing so much about." Mycroft grimaces and stands. "Thank you Allie. I'm sure my boss will have something new for you soon."

"Don't feel rushed," she groans, standing. "I'm going to bed."

She takes twice the number of white pills that she should and sleeps through the day and all of the night. Hunger gnaws at her stomach when she finally stirs, but the thought of food seems almost nauseating.

"Where's John?" Dressed and looking respectable she surprises Sherlock as he looks into his microscope, not that he lets it show.

"Work. Family surgery. Address is on the fridge."

Wombat is there with a container of Indian and a sorry when John takes his lunch break.

"That's all right. I'm to blame too."

"I can't believe you work an actual job now. Without gore or death."

They make their way to a bench.

"Well, it's nice to settle down." He gives a pointed look at her (well, technically his) old Gulf War army jacket. "It's nice not to carry around a gun."

"Curry and concealed nine millimeters. What else do you need to complete an afternoon?"

As John gives her a tight hug and heads back to work, leaving Wombat on the bench, the sky falls open, water pouring down onto her, so similar to the bullets from her dream. But this time she revels in it, letting it spill over her face and soak into her skin. Staring into it, the universe rushes down on her: grey on grey, wet on wet, infinitely infinite. Then it's interrupted by pale angles and cold blue puddles.

"John's in work," Sherlock says.

"Yeah, he is."

"I'm bored."

"What do you want to do then?"

"Follow me."


	6. Chapter 6

_The man was staring at her from across the hall. She could hear his thoughts. She didn't want to, but they were there, full of his need for control. She knew that he would follow her the moment she exited the mess hall, he was angry about that night last week. _

_ There was a gun in her jacket. _

_ Technically, it was John's -the jacket that is- covered in the camo used in the Gulf War. When she was transferred, he had given it to her. _

"Stay warm Allie. Stay safe."

_But even with the warmth of that thought she was cold when she exited the tent, the man right behind her. _

_ "Little British Mouse," he called in a sing-song. "Let's play a game." _

_ Her hand tightened around the gun. _

_ "What, does the mouse have no voice?" His rough hands touched her, snatching at her waist, pulling her back up against him. "Don't you want to play a game?" His voice was hot, wet on her ear. _

_ There was no sound, no thought. _

_ He was strong, but she was better. _

_ Like the men in the house, it was all just a game. _

_ A bullet ripped through his bowels. _

_ "I win." _

_ The next day, Mycroft Holmes appeared._

* * *

><p>"Where are we going?" Wombat asks, struggling to match Sherlock's long strides.<p>

"The tube."

"Why?"

"I'm bored."

"Yes, so you said. How's the tube going to entertain us?" There's no response. "Look!" she grabbed his hand in irritation. "You don't have to tell me where we're going if you don't want, but I'm a lot shorter than you, and your gonna have to slow down."

He does, mainly so she'll let his hand go.

"Why do you wear John's old jacket?"

"Pardon?"

"There's a faint blood stain on it, so why do you wear it?" All of his questions are asked in a bored, border-line monotone.

She halts, staring at his back, eyes wide. After a moment he turns and takes in her scared expression.

"I..." The word lurches from her throat.

Ghosts. Ghosts swim in her eyes.

It's loud, so loud, all the people in the streets being loud and thinking loud.

She's aware of the light, thin strands of it all around her, bouncing off her skin and clothes, off the trees and the sidewalk. Why is it there? It has no business.

She wants to run, out run it all, go home.

The sidewalk begins to move

There's so much noise. It's blinding her, distracting her. The rows and rows of town houses are blurred behind tears.

She doesn't remember town houses, she was across from an office building.

The sidewalk halts.

Red, yellow, purple, green, black.

There's leather beneath her face, soft on her cheek. Music drifts around as she tumbles down into Wonderland.

When the house of cards collapses she's lying in the back seat of a car, head foggy. It's dark outside, street lights casting their light onto her occasionally.

"Ah, we were worried we'd given you too much."

"You drugged me." Wombat tries to sit up, but is forced back down by a wave of sick glaring at Mycroft Holmes who sits in the passenger seat.

"My brother called, didn't know what to do. He's rather useless once a girl starts to cry." The car jerks to a stop and she can't stop her self from sliding onto the floor. There's a click as the door swings open and she's staring into the worried faces of John and Sherlock. She reaches out to the former, who helps her to sit up, and smooths back her hair as she throws up on curb.

"Come on, Wom." He steps around the sick and pulls her up, carrying her to the door. Sherlock tags along. Wombat is reminded of how strong John actually is as he carries her up the stairs and lays her on the couch in his flat.

_Or maybe I'm just smaller then I think._

"You didn't have to carry me, John." she says, combating the nausea as she sits up.

He ignores her. "Do you want some water?"

"Please."

Sherlock is still standing, staring at her.

She would try to smile at him, but the effort seems like too much. "'m sorry."

"It's alright."

"Don't bring up the blood. It won't come out."

"How-"

"Don't fucking bring it up."

John reappears. "Are we talking about the thing?"

_"John!" _

"Sorry. Here."

The glass is cold to the touch. The water tastes like metal, like blood, but she drinks it anyway before standing on wobbly legs.

"I'm going to bed."

"Wom."

Her sleeves fall up over her hands, even as she presses them to her eyes. Her clothes haven't dried from the rain, and the cold is a blunt weight. "John."

"You need to talk about this."

"John, please." there's a crack in her voice, a pitch of desperation.

"It's not good for you too keep it-"

"Not fucking good for me?" she slams passed him and into the kitchen, where a carton of eggs lays open on the counter from breakfast. "Come here. Let me show you something."

Her resolve falters a little as she looks at the egg in her palm; it exists in such a state of self-containment, of pure simplicity. She chooses an apple instead.

It takes both a significant amount of strength and a significant amount of determination to throw an apple into the sink hard enough to send it splattering, and the girl has both.

"That's me, John. It's not your brain, it's not your brain on drugs, it's me. Imagine trying to pick that apple up and hold it together all day, to be perfectly self-contained and not hear what's going on in anyone else's jolly little mind. I do that, John. I do. But sometimes I can't. Sometimes, I'm just a girl who doesn't know who she is in that moment, whether she's brave enough to walk outside alone or if she needs someone to help her. So, forgive me if I maybe don't talk about my feelings to relieve you of that burden that _I _feel whenever the apple falls apart." She turns to leave, then pauses. "They found me in Camden, didn't they?"

Sherlock doesn't see John's look of panic and responds.

"Yes."

The girl, not quite sure of herself in that moment, turns and leaves.

John speaks the minute she leaves the room. "Damn it, Sherlock!"

"What?"

Turning to wash the apple down the sink, he considers his next words. "Her mother lives in Camden. It's her home."

"So?"

"She hasn't been allowed to go back since the government took her away."

"And?"

"She was thirteen, Sherlock."

* * *

><p>Allie feels as if someone has replaced her Ambien with caffeine. She sits up, the springs in her fold-out squeaking, and looks around the dark flat. The bookshelf looms, dark and sparsely filled, hardly illuminated by the perpetual glow of London pushing through her window. The clock above the stove blinks a little past three. With a sigh that comes deep from her belly, she rises and pads down the stairs.<p>

She knows the step with the squeaky board by John's room, but she steps on it anyway, distracted by the dreams pouring from his mind; they're almost as bad as the ones she has, filled with the same fear, the same desperate feeling that comes when your life is being pulled away and all you can do it claw at it.

She moves quickly by.

The door to the living room is open - it's rarely closed despite the lack of privacy from Ms Hudson's gossiping friends filing past the bottom of the staircase at any given point during the day. She hears Sherlock breathing as she stands by the couch, the slow, regular, near silent sound that accompanies his thinking. He's not asleep either.

"Sherlock?" Even the breathy whisper echoes too loudly in the silence. It's amazing how even in the center of London, the flat can hold such peace.

"Yes?" he's bored, irritable. Allie can see him in her mind, lying on his back under the covers, staring upward, fingers pressed together.

"Can I sleep in here?"

"What's wrong with your bed?" There's something warm about the frigidity, something reassuring in the forced sterility of emotion. She can feel his agitation as she creeps farther into the room, around to the other side of his bed. It's a process, feeling over piles of discarded clothes and papers and even one knife.

"I couldn't sleep. I was scared." She doesn't admit that easily. The cleanliness of his sheets surprises her as she slides in, not waiting for him to say yes or no. He doesn't protest as she curls up, back to him, a generous distance between them, but her presence makes him uncomfortable; he doesn't know what to do, and becomes almost afraid to breathe.

"Of what?" he asks the question so much later that she has to ask what he means. "What are you afraid of?"

She doesn't move. Her breath stops for a moment as she considers. "Tonight? Most everything."

It is as if that confession is a weight and, with it relieved, they both fall asleep, simultaneously conscious and grateful of the other's presence.


	7. Chapter 7

_The lights are harsher than the sun over the desert, colder, white instead of sun-bleached yellow. Wombat blinks underneath them, confused. _

_ "Well, operative,, you seem to have caused quite the incident." The man sitting at the desk was fat in the stomach if not in the face. _

_ She curled her hands in and out, in and out over the cuffs of John's jacket, gaze fixed steadily on her lap. No one had ever bothered teaching her that she had rights, as a British citizen or a victim. In her mind, she had only a job. _

_ "You turned eighteen yesterday?" _

_ "Yes, sir." _

_ "We didn't of course, _want _to keep you in a jail cell for your birthday, but the Americans you know." he sighed. "We told them we'd transfer you to Pakistan to make up for the incident." _

_ "Sir?" _

_ "Diplomacy and all that. An eye for an eye. They need your help locating a certain someone." _

_ She looked up for the first time. "Sir, if I'm to be transferred, I request a member of my former detail be transferred along side." _

_ Mycroft Holmes leaned forward. "I'm not sure you're in a position to make such a request. Besides, the American's would never allow it. You're at their mercy I'm afraid. We'll fly you out there this evening." _

_ It never dawned on her that she was not a pawn, not a piece in a game. That's why she needed John, but John was in Afghanistan getting shot at._

* * *

><p>It was raining, but Wombat goes for a run anyway. Her mind feels clear. For the first time in an eternity she looks around and feels the sheer cleanliness of her own thoughts, un-muddled by anyone else.<p>

London is alive, transparent and dirty as a window pane on the tube. The buildings rise above her, covered in modern soot and aged coal dust, occupants breathing in the smog of modern society against a skyline built up from the Romans. You don't see the London skyline, you taste it. Dirt and glamor, stone and wood paneled offices, businessmen seamlessly melding with junkie with needles up their arms. London exhales in a way that captures everyone and everything in a swift racing current; you can go a week before you remember to breathe in again.

Wombat returns Baker Street dripping with rain, sweat, and life. Sherlock calls to her as she pants up the stairs.

"Hm?" she pops her head into the kitchen, where a new experiment is spread on the table.

"I need your blood." without looking up from his microscope he thrusts a syringe in her direction.

"Why?"

"An experiment."

"Obviously. In what?"

"I want to see if your blood is different."

She leans against the door frame. "You don't think the government's already done that? I'm sure Mycroft would give you the results."

"I don't trust the government, much less my brother."

"That sterile?" Slumping into a chair, she holds out her arm. "I don't know how to draw blood."

He looks at her, dark hair sticking to her face. There's color in her cheeks, which are fuller than they were.

"You ran west?"

"Yes." she keeps her eyes locked on the dark curls as his cool finger probe for a vein along the inside of her elbow. The skin there is pale, fragile, but the lines of blue run deep.

"Why? Surely the park's nicer."

She flinches as the needle enters her arm. "Too open, too manicured. It's easier to run when everything around you is alive."

Sherlock doesn't argue as he draws the blood; he loves London more than anyone.

"You must need a case if you're bored enough to draw my blood."

"Yes." He folds up her arm, a napkin over the vein.

"Couldn't you just use a slide, or whatever? Like, just a drop? I think I learned that in school."

"I want to run tests." her questions stop penetrating the noise of his mind, and he turns away. She understands somehow, realizes that he's not simply ignoring her (though that is still a factor) and kisses his bent head as she walks away. It's one of the few gestures she knows that is kind and doesn't involve pulling a trigger.

She never brings up that she knows he's a junkie, because not even John, who has stuck her hundreds of times, can draw blood that quickly.

* * *

><p>Mycroft, feeling slightly guilty about the incident in Camden, has his secretary drop off several textbooks so when A-levels are entered into the system for her, they're at least mildly valid. This is how Wombat discovers Sherlock's shortcomings as a teacher.<p>

English is elementary and her Arabic already fluent. History is absurdly easy. Her mind connects the bits and pieces, the causes and affects. She reads a chapter on caliphs and can understand the present war. It is a side-effect of being the centre of a great thought hub for nearly twenty years.

Sherlock likes this, he thinks it will make her useful in cases, though he doesn't say anything.

Her difficulties lie in the more advanced sectors of maths. Variables cause no trouble, but graphs and logarithms confuse her. This leads to frustration as he doesn't see why she can't understand, and irritation when he yells at her, so she yells back. After several of these, she retreats into her room with the internet as a teacher. He stands up several times from the table as if to go knock on her door and apologise, but he doesn't.

Science is more pleasant. She'll make John a cup of tea in the evenings and snuggle up next to him on the couch like he was reading her a story. He opens the book to where they left off and skim down the page, explaining everything far more comprehensively. He's not the best teacher, but he loves his student, and she loves to learn if only to have something to do. Their fights are forgotten, as fights are, for affection is stronger than whatever anger worry can bring about. Sherlock interjects sometimes in these evenings, occasionally descending into ramblings so specific that John has a hard time keeping up. He'll snap at him to stop being a show-off, but Wombat just smiles as if Sherlock is a charming child whose antics are appreciated.

She goes to bed happy every night, with the exhaustion of a day's work. Only most nights she ends up in Sherlock's bed, curled as far away from him as possible so she can fall asleep. He know she sleeps there even nights he runs around the city on one errand or another; the dark hairs left on the left side of the bed are too straight to be his, and besides, he sleeps on the right. The perfumed soap, the small indents in the sheets, it's all Allie.

The next night when he's gone she gets a text message.

_Chinatown. Come at once. SH. _


	8. Chapter 8

Chinatown in London is like Chinatown anywhere, only amplified: a maze of secret tunnels and dealings, of hidden entrances and basements packed with smuggled goods. There is a method to the chaos, and language of those who belong that weaves in and out of the tourists who tramp through during the day. At night that unspoken language holds dominance, interrupted only by the scuttling of rats. Wombat knows she doesn't have the tongue for the language, but she does have a gun -tucked into the pocket of her coat- and two knives, one slipped into her boot, another up her sleeve.

"You're armed." Sherlock commented in slight surprise as she joined him on the street.

"You did say Chinatown."

"If you're not alright to come-"

"And let you do whatever stupid shit you're going to do alone? Not likely." She's standing tall, shoulders back, chin up, not in a forced way, but in a way that makes it evident that she's often had to stand up to men.

He doesn't say this; it would be stating the obvious. Instead, he turns and leads the way though several winding allies.

"Are you going to tell me where we're going?"

"To see a friend." They halt before a grimy door and he raps twice. In the interim of the knocks fading and the door being pulled open, Wombat looks around. They're lit by the glow of city reflecting from the clouds, standing in the most nondescript piece of asphalt in all of London. A pile of boxes molders at the end of the end of the alley, waiting for trash pickup, and somewhere, a rat scuttles. Resisting the urge to shift closer to Sherlock, she instead focuses on the matter at hand.

A teenage boy opens the door. He's several years younger than Wombat. Acne covers what seems to be every inch of his cheeks. His black hair hangs around his face.

"Harry." Sherlock brushes past him. "Maybe you can ask your sister to help blend in the makeup if you insist on stealing it."

"Who's this then?" Harry opens the door wider to admit Wombat.

"My associate."

Harry sighs as he gives Wombat a once over that's only half-business. "I'm gonna have to take your gun."

She's smaller than him, but it isn't quite obvious. "No. You won't." It's stated so matter-of-factly that he's embarrassed to protest and she steps inside.

The room is hardly brighter than the street. Unexposed piping drips down the walls, leaving scores of hiding places for roaches. Boxes hold what appears to be everything from bottles of alcohol to counterfeit luggage.

"Mum's downstairs," Harry says. "She's expecting you."

Sherlock sweeps through the boxes, his coat swirling dramatically behind him.

"You enjoy that too much," Wombat chuckles. He looks back, perplexed. "Making a scene with that coat of yours."

He's indignant. "I do not." But he pulled up the corner of a hidden trapdoor with decided plainness. "After you."

"Rule number one of survival: never descend into a room where there's a dealer who doesn't know you. Best if you go first."

"How do you figure dealer?"

"We're in a room full of smuggled goods about to descend into a dark hole."

He's impressed.

The room below is better lit, dry wall covering the pipes, floor swept. Seven women sit at a fold out table, bent over small scales. Wombat drops to the floor, landing lightly. Despite popular thought, boots are not preferable for this sort of activity. Instead, she wears canvas trainers with thin rubber soles - light for running, quiet for sneaking, good for looking like a nurse.

"Ah, Sherlock." The woman at the head of the table speaks, her hands never ceasing their task. She double checks that each baggie filled by the other women contains exactly one gram of crystal. Their thoughts bubble uselessly into Wombat's mind, formed mostly in Chinese. She delves, sorting through the top layer of babble into more subconscious terrain. She can hear Sherlock on that level - or rather see as most of what she receives from the room is images. She sees China in the memories of the women, shanty houses and clogged streets, crawl spaces with too many bodies.

_Crawl spaces?_ She stops, probes deeper into the bellies of cargo ships. Sherlock and the woman are talking, but she doesn't hear, she's eyeing the whitewashed walls, comparing the dimensions to the room above. The light particles bouncing off her skin ricochet around the room, hitting eyes and tables, worm their way through the slightest crack between the cement floor and the wall. Thoughts eek from beyond, fears of unknown white men.

"Sherlock." the sound of her own voice helps her return to her head. "I've got to go."

"Why?"

"Just, I'll see you later, all right?" She doesn't so much climb the ladder as jump to grab the top rung and pull herself up. Harry ignores her as she sprints back out.

* * *

><p>Scotland Yard is quiet in the very early morning, only a few detectives burning the midnight oil. As the officer at the desk watches, the girl produces a rarely used keycard. She looks weary, under-eyes stained mulberry, but she walks with an efficiency. The card gets her through every door, bypasses the system. Mycroft entrusted it to her, despite government worries she might rebel, go terrorist, but she's far too English for that. She doesn't like the card, it draws attention, but tonight she needs to show her rank.<p>

"Detective Inspector Lestrade?" she raps on his door, looking oddly dark under the florescent lights. He looks up, surprised.

"Uh, yeah. Yes. Can I help you?" he blinks the sleep away from his mind and gestures at the chair.

"D'you have a map of the city?"

"Yeah, why?"

"We need a raid in Chinatown. Some warehouse. If you've a map I can show you. They've been smuggling women into the country and are keeping them locked up."

"What, like kidnapping? Wait, who are you?"

"Friends with Sherlock."

Lack of sleep makes him indignant. "You can't just come in here and order a raid!"

"Actually," she says, holding the keycard out between two finger, "I can."


	9. Chapter 9

_Six Years Previously:_

_ Allie is screaming. She can't help it. She pushes at the man trying to calm her - claws at him - but he grabs her hands, holds them tight. _

_ "Look at me. Look at me!" His face is round, chin and nose both prominent, more so than the hazel eyes. "What's your name?" _

_ "Al-Allison. Allie." _

_ "Well, Allie, I'm John, alright? And I know you're very scared, but we're here to take care of you, okay?" _

_ Another explosion sounds, and she whimpers, closing her eyes. The city is hot, and she is scared. She inhabits not just her own fear, but others as well. She can hear the child crying, feel him dying in his mothers arms, and feels the woman's thoughts as if they were her own. She starts to vanish, as if that would help, but John squeezes her hands._

_ "Allie, do you understand me? We will get you out of here. It'll all be okay." _

_ She opens her eyes, and manages a whispered 'yes sir' before he pulls her up and away from the fighting. It is reassuring to her that his anger is on her behalf. _

It's Sherlock's job to make sure Harry's mother is in the basement. Qi Chaunbo, wife of the boss of a major triad. If rumors are to be believed, her husband is nothing but a puppet under her control. He knocks on the door, and Harry answers as usual.

"Back again?"

"I have more questions. A man was discovered -"

"Yeah, yeah, go down. Where's your friend?"

"Decided not to bring her along this time." The room is just as it was, cargo still in place.

"Yeah, she seemed a little crazy. Go on down."

Wombat is feeling a little crazy, not in the PTSD way, but in the jittery way.

"You alright?" Lestrade asks.

"Fine. Let's just get this over with."

She'd spoken to Mycroft earlier, and his words echoed in her mind. _"Take out Chaunbo for me." _

_ "Why?" _

_ "Many people run gangs from prison, but I've never heard an account of a person doing such when dead." _

_Just a game,_ she tells herself, looking at the door. _Just a game._

It's easy to think that way after standing around with a drawn map of the building, giving all the pieces positions and explaining the rules. Wombat is to go in first. Once she's down the hatch, special ops will secure the upstairs and wait for her signal.

She takes a deep breath and knocks.

"You looking for Sherlock? He said he left you behind."

"Left me behind? Harry, I'm practically his brain." She moves to go by him but he puts up an arm. "Look, love, I don't have time for this." His thoughts are plain, and she caters to them. Shaking back her hair, she pulls off her jacket in one casual motion, revealing the white t-shirt beneath. It's basic, something she would wear in the field, but her dark bra shows through. He's momentarily distracted and she waltzes through, depositing her jacket on a crate. "Can I leave this here? Great."

He doesn't even bother commenting on the gun again, this time tucked into the back of her jeans; eccentricity is no cause for worry.

Wombat focuses inward, focuses on Harry's thoughts and on the thoughts of special ops preparing to storm the room. She focuses on the gun now in her hand, and on Mycroft's orders.

One-two-three-four long strides across the room and she jumps down the rabbit hole, dog-tags flying up to her face.

Sherlock isn't sure who lands in the basement, but it isn't Wombat, or even Allie. It's a smooth, clean slate of a girl, reflecting nothing but focus on the task at hand. Before Sherlock or the other women else move-breathe-think a gunshot rings out and Qi Chaunbo falls to the ground, hand already on her gun as brain matter sprays onto the wall and floor. A single bullet to the brain: neat, clean, precise.

"Sherlock, upstairs."

"I-"

She shoots again, hardly glancing in the direction of a second-in-command. Another gun clatters to the ground as the body slumps back onto the table. "Go."

She concentrates around the screams of silent fear from the remaining five women, and from the apprehension from behind the wall. They do not exist. Years of training filter out everything but the facts.

There are only pieces on a game board.

It's her turn, as it always seems to be.

* * *

><p>It's over, and Allie retreats into the pure white silence of her mind. She moves like a wisp through special ops and immigration and social services, not knowing if they can see her and not particularly caring. Lestrade approaches - they can see her then - his mouth moving in speech, but she floats by, deaf to his words. She finds Sherlock walking out the door and tries to move quickly and grab his hand, but she moves like in a dream, paralyzed to her same pace. He turns, slows down for her, and somehow gets her home.<p> 


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: The chapters will resume a longer length after this, I assure you. **

_"Maybe I need God."_

_ John snorts. His will to remain positive has seeped away for the day. "You know, I'm not sure there is a God out here." _

_ Wombat puts a pea into her mouth. "Allah, God, Jehovah. It's all the same really."_

_ "Is it?" _

_ "Yeah, I think so. I mean, Abraham was a Jew, and his kids are the Christians and the Muslims. I mean, that's what they taught us in school." _

_ "You learned about this in school? Eat your meat." _

_ She obeys. "In World Religions."_

_ He gives a sigh. "Well, they may have taught you that, but nothing good ever comes from such desolate desert." _

_ Grinning, she kicks him under the table. "Except maybe modern medicine." _

_ He smiles at her cheerfulness, then takes a moment and steels himself. "Right. Right. Feeling okay about tomorrow?" _

_Her face falls along with her silverware. "It's not like it's difficult." _

_ "Yes. Of course. Sorry. I didn't mean to bring it up only-" _

_ "Is there a moment of your life you don't spend worrying?" _

_ "No. Finish your supper." _

_ "Yes _Father_, whatever you say." _

* * *

><p>It's hardly nine-thirty when they get back to Baker Street, and Wombat has woken somewhat. With a sigh, she plops onto the couch next to John, pulls off her shoes, and lies down, feet in his lap.<p>

"How'd it go?" he asks, not looking up from his book. He's learned over the years to treat these subjects like they hardly matter at all.

"Fine. Easy."

"How many women did you find?"

"Twelve."

_"Twelve?_ In how large of a space?"

"Dunno, like, five and a half metres or something."

"Squared?"

"Yeah."

He fingers the loose threads on the cuffs of her jeans as she drifts in and out of sleep. "You need new jeans."

"Eh."

"D'you need me to get you some?"

From anyone else the question would have been awkward, but Wombat appreciates his concern. "Thanks, but no. If I need clothes, I tell Mycroft's secretary and they magically appear the next week."

He sets his book down and looks at her. "Doesn't that bother you that you have control over nothing."

She sits and cuddles up to him, head on his shoulder. "I have control over a lot of things: the two of you for instance." A rare, genuine smile flashes over her face. "What I eat-"

"Yeah, which needs to be more, by the way."

"Oh, shush. I have control where I run, and who I'm kind to."

"But not who you kill." The words slip out of his mouth, running like water. They look down at her arm linked under his, at her thin, white hands clasped on her knee. After many years they both see the blood there, redder than love or hate. Guiltily, he takes them between his own as if that action washes it away.

"It's on their hands, not yours."

"They reap the benefits and I'm payed with all the slagging guilt."

"Lie down, go to sleep," he orders, kissing the top of her head. "You need it."

Obeying, she says, "What do I do if you ever get married and I can't sleep on your couch when I don't feel right?"

"If I ever get married, there'll be a guest room for you."

She chuckles and says she'll hold him to it and they resume their silence as she dozes off and he begins to read again.

Sherlock watches silently from across the room, perplexed that there can be affection in the way John absentmindedly twirls the threads of the fraying hem in his fingers.


	11. Chapter 11

_Seven years previously: _

_ It's a London rain: the sort of drizzle that emanates from dark, low hanging clouds. Pavement sky and pavement underfoot. Allie runs home from school: there are holes in her shoes, and she's left her umbrella at home again. But it doesn't truly matter: rain never hurt a thirteen year old. _

_ The flat looks nice from the outside, like another Camden townhouse, but they live in a remodeled basement that never feels clean for the damp. _

_ "Mum?" she kicks open the door and shucks her shoes and socks, dumping her bag on top of them. She wanders vaguely into the kitchen where a note sits on the fridge. _

'Had to cover Marcella at work. There's ham and eggs in the fridge for tea. Sorry love.'

_The flat echos in the silence of the fridge buzzing and the house creaking in the damp. She sits at the kitchen table, doing maths. There's the thump-thump-thump as she kicks the chair across from her, and the hush of her sigh. _

_ Someone knocks at the door. _

_ Her pencil freezes in midair. The curtains are drawn but she stares, terrified. Again, a loud, hard knocking. _

_ "Allison! We know you're in there. We saw you come home." The scratching of someone picking a lock precedes the door opening, and two agents come inside. _

_ "Allison, you need to come with us." _

_ "No." Conviction and fear make her voice shake. She isn't what she'll grow to be. She isn't strong or scared or scarred. She's just a girl with charity-shop trainers whose mother works too many hours. "You said we were done." _

_ "It's changed. Your country needs you." _

_ "Don't sound so American." _

_ "Fine, your queen requires your service. Is that better?" Irritated, the agent hauls her up by her arm. "Now come on." _

_ "NO!" She kicks at him, at the table, at everything, frantically trying to get away, but he's too strong. "My mum!"_

_ "We'll let her know where you've gone." _

_ "No! No! NO!" _

_ A needle pricks her arm as her scream turns into a screech, and - almost instantly - she slumps. When she wakes up, someone is there to teach her to shoot a gun. _

* * *

><p>Baker Street is her place of healing. She gains weight and laughs and smiles until, over the months, her infectious joy seeps inbetween the floorboards and makes even the leaky faucet seem less irksome. She turns twenty, and there's a party with Lestrade and Molly; Mrs Hudson makes a cake, like she does for John's birthday, and Sherlock's as well. Wombat learns how to knit clumsily, and for Christmas gives John a jumper, and Sherlock a scarf; they wear them proudly, despite the dropped stitches, and she glows. John likes nothing more than to see her happy. Even Sherlock, at some point during the winter, leans slightly into her as she hugs him as he's sitting at the table.<p>

She even goes to a concert one night on a whim, and meets another girl in the crowd. They become friends over bass that knocks the words from their bodies and get too drunk to find their way home. They wake, makeup smeared, as the first morning train pulls into the tube station, rumbling like a tank. Wombat returns home tired, hungover, and blissfully happy, and her existence continues on. She feels normal.

Then she receives a call from Mycroft's secretary.

It's March, and the snow has turned to slush. Cold water seeps through her boots, and by the time she gets to the office, her feet are soaked.

"Operative."

"Secretary." Wombat sits on the carpet and pulls off the boots and peels down the socks.

"Step in a puddle?"

Her toes are white with cold, and she rests them on the floor vent. "Outside is a puddle. There are holes in my shoes apparently."

The secretary nods. "We'll get you a new pair. You can go in. He's ready for you."

"Glad to know I'm his first priority."

The office makes her nervous. There are two sides to the city: one resides on the pavement, in council housing and on the back alleys; the other is palaces, glass skyscrapers, and wood-paneled offices, much like the one she sits in. It smells of espionage and thousand-pound bottles of scotch. It's not the side that she feels comfortable in.

"Ah, Allison."

"Mr Holmes." She slouches into the chair opposite his desk.

He stares at her for a long moment. "What I'm about to ask you isn't official. No, in fact it's quite off the record -"

"Isn't everything I do?"

"You might call it, personal." he says the word as if it disgusts him.

"So it's to do with Sherlock? Oh please, don't looked so shocked. Even someone as dull as me knows that he's the only person you care about. But whatever it is, I'm not going to retrieve it for you. I give him and John the same privacy that I do you." But she is sitting forward now, intrigued. No matter what she may say, she's not dull. Years of survival have made her smart, taken the typical women's ability to read a male gaze and amplified it.

"I need you to find out all you can about Moriarty."

"Moriarty? Person? Organization? Place?"

"I'm not exactly sure."

"Person, I think."

"What's he have to do with Sherlock?"

"I'm not quite sure. But I'm worried. Find out. Get back to me." From his inside pocket he produces and envelope, but she waves him away, standing.

"I'm not taking your money. It's a little too bloody for my taste."

She takes a cab home, and arrives with her feet only half-frozen.

* * *

><p>His hair is dark and soft and clean. She rests her chin on his head and wraps her arms around him. John smirks from across the table as if to say <em>nice try. It's not going to work. <em>She just winks.

"Sherlock?"

"What?" the word is terse, harsh. She just smiles and leans down to kiss his cheek. "I need your help."

"Can't. Busy."

"Obviously, if you're too distracted to form sentences." She kisses his cheek again. He's shaved, so he only just got distracted. "Come on. It'll be fun. Promise."

"Can't. Busy."

She slumps in irritation, and John lets out a bark of a laugh from across the table.

"Sherlock, Mycroft asked me to do something, but I need your help."

He turns his head to look at her, unconscious of the inch between their noses. "Oh, yes. Tempting."

Instead of acknowledging the sarcasm, she reaches up and bops his nose with a finger. "You're dying to know, I can tell."

He's addicted to information, and his eyes show his reliance. "Tell me."

"Moriarty."

"Oh." He lurches up, knocking her back. "Oh!" Hands pressed together, he begins to pace. "Well. This is exciting, isn't it? Now tell me, what does my dear brother want with Moriarty?"

"Wait," John ceases his observation. "What's Moriarty?"

"I dunno. But I know Sherlock knows something, don't you?"

"Why don't you just take it from me?"

"You know I wouldn't do that. Besides, not nearly as much fun." They're the same, the thrill of the chase, of the find. It's a game, and for once, Wombat isn't scared.

In retrospect, she shouldn't have so quickly attempted to shove her constant apprehension under the bed. A little worry is good for the instincts.


	12. Chapter 12

Moriarty is dark. He lurks in the shadows, a vibrant thing hidden from light. Wombat's searched all over, sat in the lobbies of banks and office buildings, mind unlocked, others' pouring in. But there was nothing there, no matter how much she scoured. So she traded in the business-casual for her usual fraying clothes and sits against the gratified wall of an underground skatepark. It's sometime after midnight and sometime before three when she picks something up. She listens through the music and the strobe and to a shadowy corner where two boys stand. Like a ghost, she rises, moving between streams of photons. She's deep within the boy's mind as he hands over the small bag. But Moriarty isn't his supplier. It's blacker than that. A black suit and a black gun and a kid falling to the pavement with a hole in his head while the man stands a lazy executioner.

She tears apart the kids subconscious, stealing out puzzle pieces he doesn't know he has.

"Oi! Watch it bitch!" A kid on a skateboard slams into her, she wrapped in the light /once again.

"Fuckin' chav." she mutters. The dealer is gone, but it's all right, she has what she came for.

* * *

><p>Her flat is a map. Everything against one wall has been shoved aside and replaced with a sheet of butcher paper. It's a collage of photographs and words Lines connect her chicken-scratch to Sherlock's boarding school handwriting and news clippings they've dug up. There are seemingly normal things: a suicide, a tube worker found dead, a spike in stock prices of a certain company, but they all connect. They're drawing a picture. Everything useless she dug up in the business side of the city now comes into play, intersecting with the underbelly.<p>

"You need rats," Sherlock says, as she scribbles _Broker Marley Simmons _between the arson of a flower shop and the dead Tube worker.

"What?"

"Rats. People that alert you if something's gone wrong. This man," he taps the paper. "And this one. I'll get my people on it."

"All right, thanks. Wait, this one. Patel."

"Why Patel?" It irritates him that he can't see the lines that she's drawn between a number of human subconsciouses.

"Her fiance is seeing the CEO of that brokerage that's also importing the bikes filled with heroine."

"Zoeller? _Harold_ Zoeller?"

"Yeah."

"How d'you know that?"

"Aw, don't be so bitter. I have a little bit of an advantage, after all." she tapped his forehead. "But no, I saw them coming out of a hotel. One five minutes after the first." His face quickly moved through irritation, realization, and neutrality. "Come on, I'm starved. You want Indian?"

They walk to the Indian place down the block. There aren't holes in her boots anymore, but she still feels like a child as she huddles close to Sherlock, treating him like a buffer to the weather. The wind blows drops of cold rain down the back of her neck, and - for a moment at least - she envies Sherlock's ridiculously upturned collar.

"I used to think that I'd want to live in Greece, or in Italy," she says. "Somewhere it's always summer, you know? But the desert cured me of that. I now appreciate the cold. Thanks." she ducks under his arm and into the restaurant.

The restaurant smells of curry and fresh naan. They sit at a table by the window, and Wombat looks out onto the city.

"You know, I couldn't have done this without you. You're the one who thinks like this. I couldn't do it when I first came back."

He doesn't know what to say, and just stares at her stiffly. She can feel caring lurking just underneath his skin and takes it with a smile. They eat silently, more of a comfortable silence than anything on Wombat's part, but Sherlock doesn't notice - he's thinking. Not necessarily about Moriarty, but about the girl across from him.

* * *

><p>She goes out that night. It's a Friday, and the pub is crowded: good for private conversations. She knows he's going to be there, and he knows she knows. She puts makeup on the best she knows how, and the t-shirt is exchanged for a blouse-y tank-top and cardigan.<p>

"Do I look okay?"

John indicates a smear of foundation on her cheek and she rubs it out.

"Do you have a date?"

"Course she has a date: make-up, the shoes, the perfume. It's obvious. Not so sure about the gun, though. Typical paranoia? Not so sure how she met him, though, or her. Spends all her time around here. Unless of course she's out -"

"I'm going out to get more information. I'll be back soon."

She comes back, pale and quiet. That morning she goes to Mycroft's office for a long while and comes back with a sheaf of papers: transcripts, passport, birth certificate, even letters of recommendation from a former employer and a teacher.

She shows them to John. "Allison Holiday Lark? Your middle name is Holiday?"

Nodding, she sinks into the arm chair across from him. "I should be happy, right? I mean, they let me go, but…what am I supposed to do now?"

"Get a job I s'pose. Allie, what happened last night?"

She purses her lips and rises, taking the papers back. Whenever the topic is mentioned, she leaves the room.

The next weeks are hard, but she tries. Mrs Hudson teaches her to cook, eggs, soup, brownies. They learn recipes inbetween bridge club and hair appointments. Allie gets a job as a waitress. She goes on a date with a girl with a bleach blonde pixie cut and kisses her - she's never kissed anyone before. Then she goes on a date with a laughing Irish boy and kisses him, not knowing whether her lack of preference is inherent or just apathy. All the papers come down from the wall of her flat, shoved into a trash bin. She doesn't laugh, and when she smiles it's a weak thing that no one quite believes. It's better than the beginning, because she functions, but she's nothing like she was before that night. John tries to talk to her, but she retreats farther and farther into her flat, and even Sherlock can't pull her out.

"Tell me!" he'd been pacing, but suddenly her whirls on Allie, whose sitting in his chair. She turns her head, taking in his arms on either side of her, then up at his face. The addict-like expression soften as he sees the tears welling in her eyes, spilling over onto the dark circles beneath them. "Did you meet him? What? Why does Mycroft care so much?"

"Please, Sherlock. Let it go. Let him go. It's best for all of us."


	13. Chapter 13

John has to admit that its nice to come home from work to have supper ready. Allie only works lunch, and there's always shepherd's pie or stir-fry or greek salad. She fulfills her inability to take care of herself by caring for others.

"It's not much today," she says as he walks in. "I'm not feeling great."

"Looks delicious, Wom." he kisses her cheek. "You want some tea?"

"Sure. How was work?"

"Same boring summer colds."

"Summer, of course. I went outside without a jumper on."

"Where's Sherlock?"

"Dunno. Scotland Yard or summat." At that moment her phone rings. And rings.

"Uh, you gonna get that?"

"Um…" to say no would admit a complacency and apathy she knows John will associate with a worsening mental state, so she picks it up. "What is it Sherlock? Fine. We'll be right there."

"What's up?"

She looks at John with a mug of tea in each of his hands. "You need to go to Scotland Yard."

"Why?"

"Dunno. Sherlock just said."

"But you said-"

"I've got to watch the chicken." He starts out the door. "Wait, give him this." she scribbles something on a newspaper and hands it to him. "Don't read it; he'll know."

"Who, Sher-"

"Go, John."

She listens for the click of the door before switching off the fire beneath the chicken and going to find her quiet canvas trainers. She is afraid, the poorly repressed fear of the last weeks has peaked, but she forces herself to stand straight and blank, and lets the weave of light push off, away from her skin.

Sherlock knows she's following them; its in the note, the scrap of newspaper with the word "light" crossed out of a sentence. Basic really. He erases it from his mind almost instantly out of habit, not knowing that was her plan for him.

But then comes the third call: _Easier this time, but not for you. I've replaced you, and I'm staying. _

"Replaced me? But not for me?" he paces back and forth, fingers pressed together. Wombat appears, causing John to jump. It's something you never get used to, seeing a girl appear out of no where, like dumping a boulder in a stream and watching the water move round it.

_"Replace me?_" she growls. "Oh, the _FUCKING BASTARD._"

"What, what is it?"

"It's not for you, it's for me. He knows I'm here, I don't know how but he does and he wants me to leave, GOD DAMN IT!" She's more passionate than she's been in months, quivering with anger. "I want them at 31 Harland road and I want them there yesterday."

"Wombat, what's going on?" John grabs her shoulders.

"Never try to break a person by making them angry. I was scared John, but now I'm _FUCKING PISSED OFF._" She breaks away and into a run down the street.

"Go with her John," Sherlock says in a bored tone as he dials. "I suspect she'll need you."

Camden's only a mile away and she runs fast. It's a street of colorful townhouses - as colorful as one gets in London. Wombat freezes before steps that lead down to a basement flat. They make her think of mildew and holes in her shoes, of fried eggs and bread for tea.

"Wom-"

"Leave it." Before John can say more she shoulders the door, hard.

_ The woman's hands shake from cold, fumbling the key._

_ "Come on Mum! It's pouring!" _

Once, twice, and it's open.

The room inside is just as she remembers it.

"_Sorry love, I just can't swing new ones right now."_

There are too many memories swirling, like being locked in some else's head; she can't see the room for the montage.

"Dear God."

John's voice shocks her awake.

There, several metres away is a small girl. She looks much younger, but Wombat knows she's just small for her age - that's how she looked at six. Her eyes are more hazel than green, and she has freckles spattered across her nose, but other than that it's like a mirror into the past.

"Hello love," Wombat speaks quietly, moving slowly. "We're here to help you." Sirens ring outside. "What's your name?" She peels the girl's jacket off, so the police can access the bomb more easily.

"Allie…Alexandra." she's crying the big fat tears that children do.

"Well, Alexandra, do you know where your mum is?" She looks around, surprised to see that the flat is empty. There's no overstuffed couch in the corner, no fridge humming it's last bit of life in the kitchen. Dust moats float, turned into sunbeams by the light from the window.

"A-at home. They took me at school."

"Okay, well we're going to call her, alright?" She shifts as a bomb technician pushes her aside, but she makes Alexandra look at her. "You're safe now."

"It was-"

"Shh, shh. It was just a bad dream. Your mum sings to you when you have a bad dream, doesn't she? _Hush a bye, don't you cry. Hush a bye, don't you cry." _Her voice isn't bad, just light and high. Alexandra joins her.

_"When you wake, you will find, all the pretty little horses._"

"John you know her name?" Lestrade stands at his shoulder, and he tears himself away from the two singing girls.

"Uh, yeah. Alexandra…Lark, I think."

"Great, thanks."

"So," the moment the bomb is off, Wombat picks up Alexandra, takes her spot in the chair, and settles the girl in her lap. "What do you like in school?"

"Maths."

"Maths? Really? I was never any good at maths myself. I liked history."

"With kings and queens and stuff?"

"Yeah, with kings and queens and stuff."

"But it's so boring."

"Bit like a connect-y puzzle really. You know, the ones with the dots?"

But Alexandra has stopped paying attention. "You look like my mum."

"Do I?" Wombat sees the seriousness in the girl's eyes, the connecting of the face and the song. She's good at connect-y puzzles. "Look, love, I'm about to tell you something very important. _Very _important do you understand?"

"Yes."

"You will never tell your mum that. You will tell her you want blonde hair, and when she asks what put that idea in your head, say the lady who rescued you had the pretties hair you've ever see, all right? She must never, _ever _know."

"Why?"

"Because, it's my job to take care of her, and to take care of you. All right? This was all just a terrible dream, and that's how you'll remember it. Promise me."

"Promise."

"Pinky swear?" she holds out her little finger.

"Pinky swear." The small girl's wraps around her own.

"Good girl. Now, your mum's outside, I hear her. Better run along."

So she does, jumping from Wombat's lap and running on unsteady legs through the officers, up and out.

A woman's voice echoes down the stairs.

"Allie! Thank God! Are you all right?"

_"Allie, are you hurt?" _

"I'm fine."

_"Mummy, I scrapped my knee." _

"John."

"Okay, yeah. Come here." He grabs her, pulls her up, and holds her tight. She clings to him, and buries her face in his shoulder. For the first time since he met her, he feels her cry, really cry, harsh, shaking, sobs. He just holds her, doing his best to keep her human. All the police are gone from the room and she screams as she cries.

A long time later she stops and speaks, her voice deathly low. He feels her words spoken into the crook of his neck, vibrating through him like a message from God.

"I'm going to crush him."


	14. Chapter 14

_"Snipers?_ After all of today he brings in snipers?" Wombat hands them each a mug of tea.

"Yeah." John sighs. "Are you okay then?"

"You were out getting shot at and you're asking me if _I'm_ okay? I was sitting her drinking tea and doing a bit of online shopping."

"No shots were actually fired."

"Oh, well that's reassuring," she cries in exasperation, settling on the arm of Sherlock's chair.

"He was the one you went to meet that night?" Sherlock asks. She takes his mug and holds it between her hands.

"Yeah."

He takes it back.

"I don't understand, why-"

"Because, Sherlock. He's a new level. You have to understand, in my world people can be stopped. They don't see me coming, I take what I need, and give them a single bullet in return."

"So why don't-"

"He's like me. He's your brain, in my body. A madman whose mind I would never want to get into. His skills aren't as…_defined _as mine, he only gets impressions, but still. He knows where I am even if you can't see me. I met him and…I shouldn't have gone alone. He said he was going to kill John, kill you, everyone, really. And he meant it, he doesn't care. The inside of his mind is truly the most terrifying thing I've ever seen. He's like me: it's just a game to him."

"Allie-"

"Don't call me that."

John sighs and tries again. "You're not like that, Wom, okay? You don't just kill people."

"I tell myself it's a game though, to get through it, and I don't…want to turn into that."

"Don't worry, you're not nearly clever enough," Sherlock says. "And don't worry about your mother, it's not a replacement thing."

"Sorry?"

"It's not as if she's forgotten about you, apparently mother's don't do that - Rachel taught me that. No, more likely she just followed the trend of giving children similar names. Allison, Alexandra. Allie was most likely a nickname assigned at school or by a friend, not by your mother."

There's a long pause while Wombat and John stare at Sherlock, not knowing what to say.

"Well," John stands. "I'm going to bed. First, I'm going to delete every Bee Gees song off my computer."

"Ha! Al right old man." she waits until he leaves the room before swinging her legs to rest on the other arm of Sherlock's chair, trapping him. "Okay, give me your hand."

"Why?"

"Because you're going to make me a promise, and you can't lie to a person while holding hands." She holds out hers, and he takes it, his hand enveloping hers. "Promise me, promise promise promise me that you will not get involved with Moriarty. Not anymore than you already are."

"Why did Mycroft let you go?"

"Promise me, Sherlock. Promise me you'll avoid him."

"Why?"

"Promise!"

"Tell me and I will."

She slides her hand from his. "I told him I was compromised."

He lingers on this thought a moment, but before he can say anything, before his eyes and mouth can round into an 'oh' she brushes a soft hand across his forehead.

"Forge about it. Erase it. Do that for me. Erase that thought, that bit of conversation. And promise me-"

"I promise."

They sit for a long while, dwelling silently in their lies and the events of the day. She sits with an arm on his shoulder, cheek pressed to the top of his head, watching as his twirls the fraying threads on the cuff of her jeans around his fingers.

"Thank you for putting up with me," she says through a yawn. "I mean, you could get mad at me, or ignore me, but you put up with the crazy and all the hugs. I don't know why, but thank you."

"The hugging isn't very English."

She laughs and lifts her head. "I was in a war-zone for so long, getting shot at, not having any positive contact-"

"What about John?"

"John's far to English to hug a strange teenage girl, especially at first. But anyway, there was that and then," she takes a deep breath, looking only at her hands. "then that man tried to rape me, and I shot him, and they wouldn't let me near anyone for months. So, I guess I'm just making up for lost time. Besides, even sociopaths need hugs." She kisses the top of his head and stands, stretching up. "I'm gonna go to bed. 'Night Sherlock." His listens to the sound of her quiet steps.

Somewhere in a state of half-consciousness, Wombat is aware of a warm body flopping onto the other side of her thin fold-out.


	15. Chapter 15

"What do you mean he thinks-"

"I dunno! He found out somehow! I'm on the list."

"That's impos-"

_"Shut up! _Let me think."

"Well, you obviously, can't be part of the operation now."

"It's too late, I already know. I need a rifle,"

"Absolutely not."

"In a backpack, not a duffle, and I want it by five."

"I missed the part where you got to give _me _orders."

"Sometime between you getting me on a psychopath's hit list and now!"

"Well, I don't see how a rifle-"

"Scope shot. I've done it before."

_"Through _another snipers scope? No, I'm afraid they won't go more powerful than a handgun."

"Shit."

A car door slams outside, causing them both to jump.

Her voice drops to a whisper, quicker than before. "Do you trust me?"

"Pardon?"

"I can fix this, but you have to trust me explicitly."

"I- Yes. I suppose."

"Give me your gun." he complies. "I'm going to shoot you. It's going to hurt. You'll live."

"What-"

but she's already taken a deep breath to steel herself for what's to come. There's not going to be a blank slate this time, there are no orders to process. She has to be raw, raw and perfectly jagged. She doesn't take aim, doesn't concentrate, just pictures and shoots as she was taught to do. The door downstairs was in the middle of opening, but now it slams against the wall.

Two pairs of feet run up the stairs, accompanied by worried yells only to see Wombat calmly taking a sip of tea, gun by her side. Mycroft lies on the floor, red leaching onto his shirt.

"Allie, what did you do." It's somehow a statement.

"Bored." It's half-Sherlock, half-song. She talks like Moriarty. "Besides, he wasn't very nice, was he?"

Sherlock's off the phone with the ambulance already.

"Allie, give me the gun." John holds out his hand.

"No, don't think I will."

"Wombat." Sherlock speaks.

"Oh, you just think you're so clever, don't you Sherlock? And you are. Very, very clever. Too clever for your own good really. I'm sick of clever." Another shot rings out, she's shot the smiley face on the wall, given him a nose. John's never heard such a sickening laugh. "I'm tired of feeling _not _clever. Of being treated like I'm _not _clever. There are people out there who appreciate my skills. Other than Mycroft here, of course." she pokes at the prone man with the toe of her boot. "Anyway, be a love and tell Mrs Hudson I'll be back for my things." Stepping over Mycroft she heads for the door. Sherlock makes a grab at her. Whirling, she aims the gun not at him, but at John.

"Don't tempt me, Sherlock."

His eyes are some dark mixture of emotion that she can't read, but there's not enough anger, not as much hate or betrayal as she needs, so she fires. John cries out and falls to the ground, clutching his right thigh.

"Aw, my finger slipped." With a fake pout she falls out of vision.

She doesn't let herself cry, even when she hears the ambulances, just keeps walking, hands shoved in her pockets, head down. She wishes she could have looked away in that last moment, when Sherlock's eyes clouded over; that image is burned into her mind. She puts his pain into her mind, uses it to twist her soul, mask her intentions.

The already dark day darkens into night, but she walks still, down alleys and along train tracks where she knows she'll be seen. Finally the invitation comes, and she follows a man into the kitchen of a busy restaurant. There, at the chef's table, Moriarty is eating some elaborately decorated sushi. The chopsticks look like weapons in his hands, but she settles across from him.

"Sushi?"

"Please."

"So," his voice is high, singing. "What do you want?"

"Same as what you want, to win." She ignores the girl who sets down a plate in front of her.

"Oh, I think you have it all wrong. Winning is boring." he changes to subject. "Mycroft Holmes, I can see. But John? John Watson, the only thing keeping Sherlock sane. Of course, he's not dead is he?"

"No, but Sherlock is angrier now than ever before, rasher than anyone." She yawns, stretches. "I'd thought I'd mix it up a little."

"My plan is perfect," he says. His voice doesn't change, but she's suddenly very afraid, like that first night at the pub. "From now on, you come to me first."

She shrugs, and makes a noncommittal sound. "Thanks for the sushi." Taking her plate and chopsticks, she leaves. This time, she doesn't have to look at his face in the last moments, and she's glad. Not even the desert could put that much darkness into a person.

* * *

><p>Even staring at the bandage on his leg John can't believe it. "No. Not Wom. Wombat would never - Look." he takes a deep breath. "We're wrong. She's trying to tell us something."<p>

"We were _wrong _John!" Sherlock yells. _"I _was wrong!"

"He's quite right, I'm afraid," Mycroft says from the hospital bed. "She played us well. I've never see her in such a state. We trained her too well, perhaps."

"But then…" John fumbles. "Why didn't she kill you? Wom never misses."

"She wasn't counting on you getting there, I think you surprised her. She said she wanted to watch me die."

John limps over and sinks into a chair. "No. Not Wombat. Not Allie."


	16. Chapter 16

Light filters through a dirty glass pane, providing just enough light to see as the man assembles his rifle. Not that it matters: he could do it in the dark if need be.

"Ever seen a man shot through their scope?" a girl is sitting on the step below him, as if summoned by magic. "I've done it, but no one believes me. Oh here, ya dropped this." she hands him the scope in question just as her phone buzzes in her pocket. It's time.

"No, never." his voice is thick with Siberia, with snow and hot summers marred by black flies. "Are you an angel?"

"Ha! Do I look like an angel?"

She doesn't. Her hair is dark and straight, and skin clear, but she'd have to be a homeless angel. Her boots are new, but her jeans have a hole in the knee, and she's wearing and old olive-green jacket.

"No. I don't. I'm sorry, I have to do this." She produces a gun, and suddenly he's staring down the barrel. "You're going to kill my friend."

"My employer-"

"Dead. And the men supposed to be watching you." she stops speaking. "All the men I've killed. They've forced me to, you know. Threatened me with my mother. What would you have done?"

"I kill for money."

"I suppose that's true. Will you pray for me?"

"I will put in a good word for you." He's strangely unafraid. He should be praying, begging for forgiveness, but if an angel's hands are stained with blood, then what can they expect of a man?

"And I for you."

He doesn't even hear the gun go off, as if the angel takes his soul before pulling the trigger.

"Yeah, it's done.…uh-huh. The building across the street." She hangs up and stares down at the man. His head is shaven, covered in Russian prison tattoos. "Poor bastard." Pocketing his scope, she turns and leaps down the stair, sprinting out into the light. There are still two more to kill.

* * *

><p>There are messages on her phone. Messages and messages and missed calls, all from John. She ignores them, just wanders back into Baker Street that night and curls up next to him on the couch. He's been crying, but now just stares straight ahead.<p>

"I'm so sorry."

"Allie, Sherlock-"

"Sh. Shh. I know." She tries to keep him safe, wraps her arms around him. "I'm so sorry. About that, about the shooting you."

"It was a plan, right?"

"Of course."

"But it failed."

It was executed perfectly, a near textbook procedure. "Moriarty won." Even though she knows the truth about Sherlock, tears clog her voice. John is nothing but hurt, and she has to hurt him more. "John, I'm being called away."

"What!" he pulls away from her. "Now?"

"I have to go pack. I have a midnight flight."

"Where are you going?"

"I can't tell you."

"When…Allie, please."

She gives a little sob, and wipes the tears away. "I'm so sorry, John. I hate to…I'm going for you. I have to keep you safe." She lays a hand on his cheek, and kisses his forehead.

"Allie, tell me-"

"I can't."

He grabs her hand, finger laying on her wrist. He's the one who taught her that trick: see if their pulse rises, they can't lie to you if you're lying.

"Allie, promise me you'll be safe."

She looks at their hands, clasped between them. His grip it too tight to pull away. "Promise."

His strongest memory of her over the next two years is the feel of her pulse, rising beneath his hand.

End Part I.

**A/N: if you are still here, wow. thank you. All my love. The last part will be significantly shorter, less fluff (or more, depending on your definition). **

**once more, thank you.**


	17. Chapter 17

"Miss? Your tray table? Miss?"

Holly is shaken awake by a stewardesses gentle hand. "Oh, sorry. Yes."

"And you'll need to turn off your iPod too."

"Yes ma'am. Thank you." she gives a tired smile and sticks her earbuds back in as soon as the stewardess is gone.

London comes into view outside the window. The sight of Big Ben, the Eye, the streets and bridges all lit up under the fall of night makes her almost start crying.

_"Ladies and Gentlemen we've landed at London Heathrow, current time nine fifteen, sixteen degrees Celsius. You may now turn on electronic devices but please remain seated with your seatbelts fashioned until the captain turns off the fasten seatbelt sign." _

Shoving back her hood, Holly ties her dirty blonde hair back up into a ponytail before pulling out her cellphone.

"It's me, we just landed…Is he home?…Good. And the address? Great, thank you."

A flash of an ID badge gets her off the plane quickly, and out into the terminal. God, it smells like home, even here. But it doesn't really hit till she's on the tube rattling into the city.

_Home. _

The suburbs pass by, streets growing lighter and lighter. She changes trains at Picadilly, enjoying the Friday night traffic. But then she starts to get nervous. It wasn't in the best conditions she left, no one ever leaves London happily in normal circumstances, but her departure as so sudden, so painful. She rides the train to the other side of town, and is deposited in suburbs once more. The stops are far apart here, but the walk to the address is pleasant, perfectly cool, quiet. Nothing like New Delhi with it's constant crowds and summer heat that weighed like a wool blanket.

She doesn't stop as she normally would, to examine the row of town houses, just leaps the step to the right one and raps the door. It's opened almost instantly by a blonde woman. She's about Holly's height, with short hair and large eyes. She's in a dressing gown, cup of tea in her hand.

"Uh yes, I'm so sorry, but is John here? John Watson?"

"Yes, just a mo. Would you like to come in? You're not here advocating for Sherlock, I hope," she says with a smile. "He's still fuming."

Holly offers a weak smile. "Thank you. And no, I'm not." She sets her duffle bag by the door, and stands awkwardly on the small tile entrance, not wanting to step on the pristine carpet in her boots.

"John!" the woman calls up the stairs. "There's someone here to see you!"

"If it's Sherlock-" he's halfway down when Holly can't wait. She's so nervous she's almost crying. His name comes from her mouth, half-call, half-sob. "Good God."

She tries again. "Hi John." His arms are around her and she's crying and hugging him back.

"Allie." he pulls away to look at her. "You look…why's your hair like that?"

"It's a wig," she sniffs, and smiles, and puts her hands on his face."God, you're so happy. I'm sorry about the crying. I've just got in from Delhi and-"

"That's where you've been? You know, Sherl-"

"I know, John." her gaze turns down. "I've been cleaning up his mess too. Or, Moriarty's mess, rather."

"So you knew?" Anger rekindled he turns away, then back. "You knew before you left? Allie, why didn't you-" he cuts off. She's done with tears and staring at him almost angrily.

"John Hamish Watson you listen to me. People did what was necessary to save your life. Something I'm sure Mary here is very grateful for. Now take off your blinders, stop acting like a child, and fucking say 'thanks Holiday, I really appreciate the fact there isn't a bullet in my brain!'"

"Holiday? You're going by that now?"

"Not to you. Now, I'm going home, Sherlock's expecting me and he'll worry if I'm not there-"

"Sherlock doesn't worry."

"I'll bring you lunch tomorrow. Noodles alright? See you then." she kisses his cheek and turns to Mary. "Lovely to meet you Mary. And John, I really couldn't be more horrifically glad about your domestic bliss.

They stare after her once the door closes.

"How did she know my name?" Mary asks.

"Same way she found the house I s'pose."

Baker Street looks the same. It's warm and dusty and bright. She dumps her bag in the door, and pulls off her boots.

"Took you long enough," Sherlock says. He's sitting in his chair, considering John's.

She laughs. "I was there like, three minutes."

"I meant your flight. How was he?"

"He seemed good." she stands in front of him. "God, I'm torn between sitting down, and showering." She pulls the wig from her head and her own hair falls out. It's grown long over the past two years, makes her look older.

"You flew from New Delhi?"

"Yes. Do I smell that much like curry?"

"No. Mycroft told me." He gives her one of his almost smiles. "I'm going to bed."

"I'll go shower then."

The bathroom is filthy by first-world standards, but cleaner than anything she's been in in months. She stands under the warm spray long enough that Sherlock calls from the bedroom.

"Do you need help?"

"My, aren't we impatient?" but she climbs out and gets dressed.

The light is off in the bedroom. She doesn't even bother finding her way around, just catapults herself over Sherlock, landing on the bed with a thud.

"I haven't seen you in forever," she complains, snuggling against him as he holds out an arm. He looks down at her head resting on his chest, hair damp.

"Two weeks."

"That's practically forever, isn't it?" She scoots up a little and kisses his cheek. It's not a kiss that Baker Street has seen before, not a peck but something soft and lingering. "So very _very _long_." _She's good at those kinds of kisses, the ones that can find Sherlock in an antiquated opium den in China, or beaten in an alley in Ankara and pull him back. He doesn't wait for her to trail to his mouth, but meets her for the next one. They kiss for a long moment before his hand toys with the hem of her shirt and she pulls back.

"I'm sorry. I'm just too exhausted." So he kisses her again and runs a hand through her hair as she lies back down.

"Holiday?"

"Hm?" She can hardly respond, half-asleep and perfectly content.

"Are we going to tell John?"

"At some point I suppose." she shakes herself awake long enough to go to use the bathroom before crawling back into bed. Sherlock looks at her as she sleeps. Two years of hardships have left their mark on her. He knows every inch of her skin, every scar. He's kissed the bullet wound in her left shoulder, the freckle behind her ear. He's watched her hair grow, and seen her smile with Indian women in small villages as they wrap her in a sari. He's seen her with blood on her skin and a gun in her hand, found her quaking with Malaria is Myanmar. In more ways than one, the dismantling of Moriarty's network would have been impossible if not for her. She never talks about the things she did when they split ways, when Mycroft's men called and sent her scrambling over the Himalayas or into Brazil, and Sherlock knows not to ask.

He falls asleep appreciating the way she sprawls in his bed and remembering the way she flew, spinning around a dusty Indian village in a colourful sari.


	18. Chapter 18

She comes back from a meeting with Mycroft several days later to find an empty flat. "Sherlock?" he can't have left, she's wearing his scarf. She remembers the conversation clearly, his assurances he wasn't going out, and to take it since hers was in the wash. Though instinct urges, she doesn't yet reach for a gun, but creeps further into the apartment, mind open. It's empty.

Scolding herself, she deposits a record player onto the table and unwinds the scarf, draping it over a chair. The flat's too quiet; her jacket rustles too loudly, her heels echo as she takes the record player into the living room and begins setting it up. The silence is so pronounced that she almost screams with the phone rings.

It's the moment she truly knows something is wrong - Sherlock never leaves his phone behind, but there it is, resting on the table where it would have been in easy reach of where he had been sitting. She answers it, if only so it will stop.

"Hello?" she kneels as she speaks, searching for signs of a struggle.

There's a surprised 'oh!' then a "It's a woman!" spoken muffled, as if someone had covered the receiver. She waits patiently.

"Yes, sorry. I'm trying to reach my son."

She almost laughs. Any observer would think the Holmes brothers were orphans the amount they spoke of their parents. "Mrs Holmes?"

"Yes. Is Sherlock there?"

"Sorry, he's out at the moment," she says, crouching down. There's nothing except dust. Every sensible part of her brain knows he's just run out, but the scarred bit is worried. "Left his phone."

"You're Allie then? His flatmate?"

"He's told you about me?"

"No, not Sherlock, but Mycroft said you were keeping him safe…abroad."

"Well, I'll have him call you when he gets back. Have a lovely evening Mrs Holmes."

She hangs up and makes herself breathe. The first time back from Afghanistan she didn't know what to call it, but now she does: PTSD. Having a name makes it easier to keep her mind together, to stay anchored in a dusty flat as opposed to floating off into that blank space.

Instead she makes a list. Shoes and jacket get taken off and put away, and she sits down in front of the record player, stack of vinyls in her lap. She hadn't meant to buy it, but she'd passed the antiques shop as it was closing. It was dusty and battered, but the man had given her several classical records that she knows Sherlock will like, and several she knows he won't. She figures out how to get it started and puts on one of the loud ones. Scratchy rock fills the flat. For the duration of several songs, she just sits and stares as it runs round and round. She grabs a half-pack of cigarettes from a nearby drawer and smokes them, one after another, just staring at the record, waiting for her mind to settle.

Sometime around midnight, after she's been lulled into a daze by some sort of new-age record, she's aware of someone in the flat.

"Sherlock?"

"John's fine, if you must know!"

"Sorry, what?" she stood up on unsteady legs.

"Which you would have know if you would have answered your phone!"

"Sherlock, what are you talking about? You left your phone here…mine didn't even go off. What the hell is wrong with John?"

"How'd she know it was a skip code though?" he's moved on, and begins pacing, hands behind his back. "Oh, oh this is good. And who-"

_"Sherlock!_" he turns to her, not even registering the crack in her voice. "John?!"

"Oh, yes him." he waved a hand. "He's fine. Hardly a little smoke inhalation. Mostly shock." he peers at her. "Are you all right?"

She wipes her eyes and takes the last drag of an exhausted cigarette. "Yeah, fine."

"Come on, I need a bath."

He likes the record player. Something classical and obscure wafts into the bathroom. He accepts the cigarette she passes down.

"I need some fucking Valium after that story." She takes it back and blows a long stream of smoke.

"Relax Holiday, John's fine." water splashes softly against the side of the tub as he shifts to kiss her sternum. "Let's go to bed."

"Hm? Done thinking?"

"Oh, no" He brings her up as he stands, pulling her tight against him, damp skin pressed to damp skin and looks at her mischievously. "I'm just getting started."

She wakes gorgeously slowly. It starts with her toes, and then her mouth curls into a smile as she presses deeper into the pillow. Sherlock sighs in his sleep, causing her to open one eye. The grey light of a London morning lights him; he looks like a child, with his dark mop and a face smooth of anything.

"Oh, I'll check the bedroom, maybe he's still sleeping."

Holly bolts up, quick enough to send Sherlock 'hm'ing awake just as the door opens, then just as quickly slams shut.

"Shit." Holly rolls out of bed and begins rummaging around for a bra as someone calls sorry through the door.

"Who was that?" Sherlock asks.

"I think it was your mother."

"Mother?" he groans and lies back.

She jumps as she wriggles into a pair of black jeans. "Yeah. She called your phone last night."

"Oh God." he rubs his eyes. "Mycroft told me they were coming."

"You should probably go out there." she snatches her phone off the bedside table and hurries out. "Hi! Sorry about that, Sherlock should be out in a mo." she calls before locking herself in the bathroom. Sliding down against the door, she checks her phone. There's an international number from Mycroft followed by _9 o'clock my office. _She dials quickly, and concentrates on the static-y ring in an attempt to block out three sets of thoughts.

"Alo?"

"Hussein, it is me." Her Arabic is low, as if men will take her more seriously.

"Yes, I have news for you. All my connections said no."

"They did?"

"Yes. It is not the Talibs or Al Qaeda or any such group."

"No rogue PLO are upset about the minister's statement?"

"No."

"Alright, thank you. Salam."

"Salam."

The entire exchange takes twenty seconds. She washes her face, pulls back part of her hair, and sets another number dialing as she exits the bathroom. Sherlock is in the living room, sitting in a chair opposite his parents on the couch. She snaps for his attention as the ringing stops.

"_Bonjour_?"

_"Je voudrais du café s'il vous plait." _Her French is far slower, more halting, but accurate in accent. She hopes she remembers the code correctly.

_"Ginny?" _

_ "Oui. Une moment. J'ai quelqu'un pour traduire." _

She mouths a sorry at the watching Holmes as she hands Sherlock the phone. He speaks on some level between text book and dock worker; it wouldn't surprise her a little if he had a foray onto the streets of Paris after boarding school.

"She says there is no one."

Holly sighs. "Ask her if she's sure. Ask her if she's checked the Quebecois."

He rolls his eyes and complies. _"Non? Merci._"

She takes the phone back. "Thanks. I'm so sorry about that." she crosses the room and shakes hands with his parents. "I'm Allie."

They introduced themselves.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Mrs Holmes said. "I didn't-"

"Oh, it's all right." the knocker slams against the downstairs door. "Sherlock, sit. I'll get it." She feels his glare as she turns down the stairs. Even his normally quiet thoughts are buzzing into her mind.

A boy waits at the door with a bag. "Mr Holmes sent this."

"Thanks Kevin."

As if on cue, her cell buzzes.

"Mycroft?"

"Change of plan, I need you at Buckingham Palace."

"I'm sorry, _where_?"

"Buckingham. You're briefing the queen."

"_The queen?_ On what?" She dumps the bag on the table and pulls out the contents. It's a black piece of clothing that lands somewhere between shirt and dress. "Mycroft, I don't have anything yet." Her level of stress rises, and with it, the thoughts in her head intensify.

_…don't know why he's so unhappy…_

_ …strange girl…_

_ …wish they'd leave…_

"What about Sherlock?"

"No. I mean, I had him working on something, but your parents are here and- Mycroft, my head's cracked open."

"Ugh. My parents. Tell me, how mundane are their thoughts?"

_…I'd love some coffee, told her we should've stopped…_

_ …Don't know why he hasn't offered us tea…always so thoughtless…_

She puts the kettle on. "I'm trying not to listen."

"They always were so…pedestrian. Not in a bad way, of course. It's almost enviable."

"Mhm. Why the queen?"

"Sorry?"

"Why the queen? Why can't I just tell you?"

"She's very curious about you. A 'teenage spy' were her words, I think."

_…talking on the phone…_

_ …she going to come out…bit rude…_

_ …always so prying…_

"How…strangely…pedestrian, to use your word. Does she think I'm a plaything?" Holly pours water into mugs: one milk and tea, one white coffee, and one black - two sugars.

"Are you alright Allison? You sound a little harried."

"Lots of conversation."

He understands. "Ah. Well," he says as she picks up the mugs. "Tell them I said hello. It's my turn later, I'm sure."

"Mycroft says hello." She forces a smile as she sets the mugs in front of Mr and Mrs Holmes.

"Ask him if he knew," Sherlock grouches, accepting the last mug.

"Your parents say hello, and Sherlock wants to know if you knew."

"Of course I knew."

"Of course he knew."

"Ask him if he knows."

"He now wants to know if you know."

"What do you think?"

"Of course he does, don't be naïve."

"Do my parents know?" Mycroft asks.

"They do now."

"I have to go. Be at the back entrance in an hour; the guards will let you in. Put on whatever Anthea got."

"Yes. It's very…teenage spy."

"Good. Her Majesty will be pleased."

Sherlock knows what it means, the cups of coffee, and the way Holly sags onto the floor by his chair.

"I'm so sorry." she apologizes to the Holmes again. "I've been trying to get ready for a meeting."

"Are you like Sherlock here then?" Mr Holmes asks. "Able to deduce coffee? This is perfect."

_"Dad."_

Holly smiles weakly. "Something like that, yes." She looks up at Sherlock. "I've got to go."

"Where're you going?"

"To see the queen." She laughs at his expression. Grabbing the bag from the table, she locks herself in the bathroom again. They hear the sink running, her speaking in hesitant, un polished Chinese. Then she yells a goodbye and runs down the stairs, heels thunking on the hardwood. Moments later she's back, pencil in hand, standing on the couch between the Holmes' scrawling something on the wall that causes Sherlock's mood to darken with irritation and her to laugh and kiss his cheek before leaving again.

Mrs Holmes cranes her neck back, then looks back at her son. "She seems…busy."

"Mycroft's fault," he sighs. "As always."


	19. Chapter 19

They stand outside the back gate, smoking cigarettes after the hardly ten-minute meeting.

"They no doubt think you're crazy."

"Them, the queen, and everyone else in this country."

"Sherlock and John seem quite found of you."

"Ha. Thanks. You on the other hand, manipulate my crazy for the good of the empire. I should complain to the PM."

"Far too above his security clearance; I don't want to have to arrange an assassination. So much trouble."

"Especially when you can't get your invisible operative to do it."

"I'm glad we're on the same page." he gives her what could almost be construed as a smile.

"Can I ask a frank question Mycroft? Why did you do it?"

He exhales slowly. "Do what?"

"You know what I mean."

He considers the prompt. "At the time I believed I had no other choice. I was under tremendous pressure from the ministers, from the Americans. Governments may pretend to be for the welfare of the people, but they are, in fact, only for the welfare of the masses." Taking another moment to inhale he continues, smoke pouring from his mouth as he speaks. "I felt terrible about it, and as soon as I was allowed to withdraw you I did. It's no coincidence that John ended up at Baker Street, Allison, and you were placed there on purpose as well. I hoped that Sherlock would be good for you, and you do make quite the good team. Though I am unsure if it is wise for him to be so fond of you."

She chuckles and leans back against the bars. "Not to worry. He'll never like me as much as John." But she's considering what he said, considering the years in the war, the moment she returned home to see John, to meet Sherlock. The wasted cig falls to the ground and is crushed beneath her toe. "Thank you."

"For what? Causing you great mental damage?"

"For putting me with them. I think I'd forgotten what home was like before that."

"Your sister is doing well by the way. Perfectly average, not a hint of anything of your sort."

"Good. Thank you." She straightens. "I should be getting back. I have work to do."

"Of course. Please tell me as soon as your hear anything."

"Certainly." She walks away, then halts. "Mycroft, you may not want to admit it, but you're part of our this family just the same."

"As if I'd ever want to belong to such a ragtag bunch." but it's said with a wink that makes her give her first true smile of the day.

She stays out past lunch and returns home with a bundle of information to pin onto the wall Sherlock started to keep track of his 'rats'. Those rats turned into the central piece of a game that spreads out and twists as if they're trying to connect every part of the world together. It irritates them both to no end when the other does better.

There are signs that make it clear that she feels at home in Baker Street, primarily the fact that she leaves a trail: shoes shucked by the door, jacket thrown over the bannister, satchel dropped on the stairs.

"Sher- Oh, hello again." His parents are still there, chattering away.

"Hello dear. How was the queen?" Mr Holmes asks.

"Suffice to say I did not make her laugh."

"She was not amused?"

"Ha! No sir!"

Sherlock groans. "Oh God I forget how dull you can be!"

"Is he-?"

"No, he's talking to me." She takes it with a good humored shrug. "You won't say that after hearing what I've found out."

"What?"

"Not now."

He gives her an exasperated look and goes back to staring over the tips of his fingers at the far wall.

"So what do you do Allie?" Mrs Holmes asks as Holly leans against the wall by the kitchen.

"Um, I work for Mycroft."

Their faces change. "Oh, you weren't just talking to him-"

"So you really were meeting the queen!"

"Did you meet Sherlock through him, then?"

"Well, sort of. I lived in the upstairs flat."

"And now you live down here."

_"Father." _

Holly, for all her boldness, does not know how to respond to such phrases. Her confidence is a purely feminist thing based on her ability to hold her own amongst men, not on her comfortableness in her own skin. Instead she resorts to the British default:

"I'm going to make some tea. Anyone else?"


	20. Chapter 20

"He's always loosing things between the cushions you know, coins, keys, sweeties-"

"My glasses."

"his glasses, and I asked him…"

Holly stifles a groan and instead looks at Sherlock. Nearly an hour of smiling and nodding is getting overwhelming. He isn't even bothered to look pleasant.

"Sherlock? Oh, you're busy!"

"No I'm not." he jumps up at the same time as Holly throws herself at John.

"John! So glad to hear you're okay!" she hugs him and mutters "Thank the Lord you're here."

"I'll come back later," he tells Sherlock as Holly pulls away, half in truth, half to annoy her.

"No, no, they were just leaving."

"We were?"

"Oh, yes."

Holly takes the opportunity of Sherlock herding his parents away to grab two beers from the fridge and pop them open, handing one to John.

"Clients?" he asks.

"His parents."

_"Parents?" _

Holly nods solemnly, taking something that's almost a chug. "God, I need something stronger after that."

"Sherlock," John calls as the door shuts. "Your parents are so…ordinary."

"It's a burden I have to bear."

Holly sighs and collapses onto the floor. "They have been here forever."

"At least you had an excuse to leave." Sherlock groans.

"Wait, how long have they been here?"

"They woke us up this morning."

"This morning?"

"Too damn early." She leans against Sherlock's chair.

"How are you feeling, John?"

"Yeah, yeah um…good. A little smoked."

There's a long moment of silence, then Holly says, "We should probably tell him Sherlock."

"No."

"Tell me what?"

"I mean, even your parents know now."

"Tell me what?" John asks again, warily.

"I'm not dead."

Holly snorts, almost loosing her mouthful of beer. "I'm seeing someone, John."

"Oh," he's relieved. "Veronica?" he asks, citing the blonde girl.

She laughs outright, a harsh bark. Everything about her is harsh now, John thinks, too saturated. He doesn't know if it's good or bad. "That wasn't a subject change, John."

But she's shy, apprehensive as they lock eyes, and she tilts her head towards Sherlock.

His mouth falls open slightly. "Him?"

"Yes."

"You and Sherlock?"

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"A while." Her soft tone sharpens suddenly. "John, no."

"No what?"

"I know exactly what you're thinking, and you're wrong."

_"I'm wrong?" _he stands and paces to the mantle.

_"Galavanting? _Is that really what you think?"

"Stop reading my mind!"

She's on her feet. "I honestly _cannot_ believe that you honestly think that! You have no idea John Watson! No idea at all!"

It isn't Allie's voice, or even Wombat's. It is the voice of the girl who hurled an apple into a sink, the girl who'd left London only to come back a women twice as scarred as before. It is the forceful half-yell of a women with long hair and strong eyes who wears high-heeled shoes instead of an old army jacket, and above all it is the desperation of a very small girl who just needs John to believe her, too see her sacrifice for what it is and take her into his arms, to teach her science and promise her there'll always be a place for her in his home.

She takes a deep breath, purging away the stress of the day with the smell of home.

"John," her voice is considerably softer, but there's a wanting force behind the words. "What was the first thing I said to you when I got back?"

"That I looked happy." realization melts over his face and she kisses his cheek.

"You two go on. Supper'll be here when you come back. I'll call Mary."

"Where are we going?"

"To see uh…funny hat man. Shilcott?"

Sherlock's surprised. "Are we?"

"Aren't you?" she smiles and kisses him, smiling. John is still rather bewildered. "Go on, don't do anything stupid without ringing me first."

Once they're in a cab, John speaks. "Allie?"

"Yes." The corner of Sherlock's mouth twitches up; the very thought of her name being associated with him makes him happy.

"You're dating Allie."

"I thought we established this already!" Sherlock snaps in annoyance. Deciding he can't do anything to the contrary, John just gives a smile that falls somewhere between disbelief and genuine happiness.


	21. Chapter 21

_Neither of them remember how it happened, and neither of them particularly care. Maybe it had been there since the night of their first case, when she leaned against him in the alley, or maybe it had developed during slow hours of frustrated games of chess. Neither of them knew, and neither particularly cared. _

"Mary?" John stares at her. "What are you doing here?"

"Drinking tea." Mary smiles brightly from her seat in the kitchen.

Sherlock unwraps his scarf glancing down the hallway. "Where's Holiday?"

"She said she'd be back, had to go avenge your almost deaths or something. She said to go ahead and eat though."

Sherlock paces to the window as John finds bowls.

"Sherlock? You hungry?"

"I'll wait." He falls into his chair, hands pressed together.

The broken clock on the wall ticks sporadically as John tells Mary the story of the tube car in a hushed voice. Down below, the door closes quietly.

"Holiday?"

There's no response, just the creaking of stairs. When she steps into the kitchen, John swears violently, causing Sherlock to leap from his chair.

"Fucking - Christ Wom. What happened?"

The response is leaden. "Thermal goggles."

She wants to shrink away under the three pairs of wide eyes, but forces herself to stay upright. Her clothes are torn and dirty. Everything about her is torn and dirty. A long scrape and mottle bruises cover half her face like a grotesque carnival mask. Through the holes in her clothes they can see more: on her legs, on her arms. An angry red mark snakes around her throat. She holds her wrist gingerly across her stomach.

It's wrong. Everything about it is wrong. To Sherlock and John, nothing is more gut wrenchingly disconcerting than having their invincible girl standing before them like a broken marionette. Sherlock reaches out, delicately moving his hand as if the tips of his fingers could disrupt the light and send her away.

She flinches back, hard. The expression on her face doesn't change. She stares straight ahead.

"I need you to call Mycroft and tell him to be here in twenty minutes," she says levelly. "And John, if you would, my shoulder…" he does it before she can finish, grabbing her and popping it in so she doesn't have time to stiffen.

"Thanks. I'm gonna go…" they can see her trembling on the edge, the place where her words fall away and the white pills come out. "I'm going to go bathe. Call me when Mycroft is here."

She escapes as quickly as she can. It's nearly impossible to avoid her reflection when the mirror stretches above the sink, so she bathes in the dark, sinking into the tub and closing her eyes as if the water were a sea.

_The water stretches, glints under the high sun. Holiday stands perfectly still, unable to believe that someone can exist on a planet twenty-three years and not see something so endless. Sherlock gives an impatient huff. _

_ "Oh hush," she shoulder bumps him, not looking away. "You probably saw it loads as a kid, seaside vacations and all that." _

_ "Unfortunately." _

_ Grinning she asks if there are pictures somewhere of baby Sherlock toddling around on a beach, and he assures her they're all gone. _

_ "So we have an hour to kill, right?" _

_ He glances down to see her unbuttoning her shirt. He tries to ignore the slight swell of breast where it curves into her bra, but ends up staring at it. _

_ "What are you doing?" _

_ "Come on, Sherlock. How long has it been since we've had a break?" _

_ "Java." _

_ "Yeah, you had a day off in Java. I was in Dallas, remember? I haven't stopped since Samarkand." She glances around the beach. It's still too early for anyone too be out; the sun's hardly risen. "Come swimming with me." _

"Allie, love, Mycroft's here," Mary calls through the door.

Holiday moans and slides farther into the bath. "Yeah, I'll be right there." Pain throbs over her entire body but there's nothing to do but stand and pull on clothes. She stares at the door, trying to hear through the silence that's fallen around her. She doesn't hear the door click shut or the floorboards creaking under her feet.

All eyes turn to her as she enters the living room, Mary says something. They watch the girl's eyebrows crease as she tilts her head, mouth moving uselessly. She's been un-animated, a puppet put back in the box. Her gaze moves over them: Sherlock, John, Mary, then finally, Mycroft.

Like flipping a switch her demeanor changes. Light snaps back into her eyes, white changes to red.

_"You fucking idiot!" _


	22. Chapter 22

Everyone flinches back.

"For a genius, you are without a doubt the stupidest man I've ever met! You have _a file _on me? _A FILE?" _

Mycroft, though clearly shocked, keeps his calm in a manner only the truly English can. "Allison, what happened?"

"Someone _knows,_ you _ass!" _She takes two steps forward as if to strangle him, then spins.

"That's impossible, only-"

"Yeah, well, they know Mycroft."

"Do you know who? Or why?"

"Because that's how leverage works. I'm a _pressure point_ Mycroft," she says in response to his confused look. "You understand that, don't you? I told you we should have taken care of him."

"You know I couldn't."

"Couldn't? Or were scared to? Well look where we are now!"

There's a long pause in which she runs a hand over her face before continuing more softly, but just as poisonously.

"What is the point of me staying away from my family if they are put in danger again and again?"

"What makes you think-"

"That's how leverage works! If they can't get to you through me, they get to me through them. They'll get to you somehow Mycroft."

He looks at her. Large green eyes staring out from a mottle purple and yellow face, the cut on her cheek. "You'll need to leave at once."

She laughs as a sob breaks. "No. This is your mess. You clean it up for once. I'm done."

"Allison be reasona-"

"You've taken away my family once I'm not letting you do it again."

"Operative-!"

"I'll kill myself first." It's not a threat, not a dramatic yell or a screech, but the resigned words of a soldier. The truth makes it terrifying. John steps forward and grabs her shoulder, tugging her back as if that can somehow break her and Mycroft's silent battle.

"You're compromised now. It wouldn't matter too much." His bluff wouldn't fool a child.

"Even with him knowing I'm the most valuable asset you have. Besides, think of the damage it would do. Not just snatched away, but dead."

"You're bluffing."

"I'm too tired to bluff anymore. Fucking fix this Mycroft, or I will. Now, I'm going to bed." She wrenches from John's grip and stalks out of the room. The tension deflates; everyone lets out a balloon of a sigh.

"Mycroft," Sherlock's deeper voice is almost a shock. "What did you do now?"

Mycroft scoffs, his mouth opening and closing in a somewhat fishlike manner before he settles on a quick good night and departs.

After a long moment John asks, "Sherlock, don't you think you should go check on Allie?"

"Should I?"

"Yes. Go. We'll see you later."

"Yes. Yes. Good night."

The bedroom's dark. Sherlock can see her sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to wrap her right wrist. The gasping sob stops as he steps in. He can feel her shaking under his fingers as he takes the bandage and wraps it quickly. Her skin is warm as if everything is inflamed. Sherlock doesn't know what to do, this isn't his territory. He knows how to bandage wrists and fix bullet wounds, he has even learned how to kiss her, but he doesn't know how to make her stop hurting.

"I had the most wonderful memory in the bath," she whispers. "Remember the beach in Wollongong?"

He settles next to her. "We could go back there."

"I can't picture you on holiday. You'd be bored."

"Holiday or holiday?"

She gives a watery laugh. "I'm sorry about…earlier. I just feel so… so violated." the words stick in her throat. "And I thought," she starts crying again, but refuses to acknowledge it. "I've never actually thought I was going to die. Never have I been so powerless. It wasn't even dying I was worried about I thought they might ra-" she shakes her head, shakes the word away. "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing." He thinks maybe if he sounds bored enough she'll stop worrying.

"I'm going to bed. Will you stay in here. I mean if you don't have anything to do?"

He doesn't say that he doesn't as he crawls under the sheets, simply because he doesn't know she's convinced that one day he'll get bored with her and leave. She lies on her back, unable to sleep normally. Sherlock curls on his side, resting his head on her shoulder as gently as possible. She rests her cheek on his hair and whispers,

"Can I-"

"Mmhmm."

She drifts asleep in the warm comfort of his mind.

Mary wipes the steam from the mirror and gives herself a long, hard look.

_She knows, _she thinks. _I don't know how but she does._

"John?" she calls, opening the door.

"Hm?" he lies on the bed, half-heartedly reading a paperback.

"What was all that with Allie? Is she in trouble?"

"Allie's always in some sort of trouble."

The mattress squeaks a little as Mary settles on the edge. "You don't seemed too concerned."

John sighs and sets down the book. "There's only so much concerned you can be for her, love. She always settles herself out in the end. I've learned that I can't do anything about it, so it's useless to worry."

"What she said about the thermal cameras, is she-"

"Mary, I'm sorry, I'm really not supposed to talk about it. It's classified."

"Of course," she leans forward to kiss him. "Good night."

"Night."

She returns his smile, practiced at hiding the whirring thoughts beneath.


	23. Chapter 23

The dull ache is so strong she doesn't want to open her eyes. Groaning, she flops an arm over to the other side of the bed, the _empty _side of the bed. That makes her eyes open; Sherlock is never up before she is. The clock on the wall reads past ten, a good four hours past her usual time.

Even the balls of her feet seem to hurt as she shuffles into the kitchen. Sherlock has his laptop open, contemplating something. She pauses, marveling at the way the man who was so soft the night before can click into someone so analytical.

"You should have woken me," she says, moving to the first cabinet ('almonds' to 'corn chips') and rummages around.

He 'hms?' then looks up. "I thought you could use the sleep."

"We out of coffee?"

"You never drink coffee."

"Feel like it right now. So that's a yes then? You put it on the list?"

"No." He's turned away again.

"Why not?"

"Forgot."

She sighs and opens the next cabinet ('Egg noodles' to 'medical') and finds ibuprofen, shaking several into her palm.

"You'll want something stronger than that."

"I'm fine."

"If you want I can-"

"No, Sherlock." Her look is so determined she feels embarrassed for her sternness and glances away, scratching her nose.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Do I ever?" The snap returns to her voice. "Sorry. I'm a bit antsy. Sort of hard getting used to being back here."

He just 'hms', no longer paying attention. She huffs and goes to flop on the sofa, wincing only a little as she settles. The action is so Sherlock-like John would have laughed to see it. They're rubbing off on each other little by little.

The day passes slowly. She reads a torn paperback and dozes. Around noon Sherlock glances around the corner.

"Are you usually here this much?"

She blinks awake and picks the book off her chest. "I normally go to the gym from ten to two, you know that."

"Really?" His face cinches in surprise.

"Do you not notice when I'm gone?"

"I notice when you're here."

"Obviously. Will you play me something?"

Like a smoker, it's the ceremony of it all, not necessarily the nicotine. There is nothing more endearing - or lovely - to her than Sherlock walking softly across the room to prepare his violin. His movements are smooth, practiced. She watches as he tightens the bow, running the cake of rosin over it. He plucks each string in turn - E, A, D, G - highest to lowest, turning the fine tuners at the top of the tailpiece. He stands erect, tucks it under his chin, and begins to play.

It starts off as Sheherezade, all light, high triplets. But before long he looses himself. He goes to a place similar to Holiday's world of white peace, only instead of silence it's bursting with noise and calculated joy.

When he returns, he sees a beautiful woman lying on the couch, pink on her cheeks where the bruises don't cover, fingers curled up by her mouth as if to hide the shy smile. A simple emotion is pouring from her, one of the most elemental happinesses of human nature: love. It is the exact color of the blush on her cheek.

"Thank you," she whispers, still smiling. "That was beautiful." He leans down and kisses her so softly it aches, with the infinite sweetness of a boy who never really grew up.

He sits on the couch with her for the rest of the afternoon. He doesn't let her sit up, just sits with her legs draped over his lap. Neither talk, they just hold their book with one hand, and let the other meet the other's as it will.

John gets engaged. Holiday laughs and throws her arms around him.

"Congratulations! We should have a party!"

Sherlock's face falls even more at this statement.

So there's to be a party, and a press conference.

"Why do I have to do this, again?" Sherlock groans.

"Because you secretly enjoy it." He's in the bath, and Holiday's standing at the sink, examining her face carefully; the pain of the bruises has faded in the day and a half, but they're still bright. "I'm gonna go pick up some champagne, yeah? That stuff from Reims."

"Which one?"

"The Veuve Clicquot. Sal said he'd sell me some bottles cheap."

"Sal?"

"Yes." she pulls a toque onto her head, low over her face. "Remember? The janitor in Sarajevo whose brother works in the champagne house? We stayed in his spare room?"

Sherlock waves a hand, indicating not only does he not remember, he doesn't care either.

When he finally pulls himself from the bath and dresses, Holiday is leaning against the counter as she pours champagne into flutes. Sometime in the interim, she's changed into a short-sleeved black and white dress. Her hair is tucked behind her ears, letting all her bruises show; Sherlock has learned she does not mind if he or John sees.

"Your hair is curlier."

She glances up. "I had it re-curled three days ago." It is something she began in Berlin, forcing her stick-straight hair into loose waves and curls. He proceeds to spend the next minute or so pretending not to look at her. Sitting at the table fiddling with his microscope, he starts at the floor, at her feet that flex as she stays slightly on her toes, her achilles tendon curving up into smooth thigh that bifurcates and slopes into knee. Her skirt takes over at that point, but he knows what it hides.

"I see you looking."

"I don't know what you mean."

She just smiles and tells him to let in John and Mary. John sits down on the couch, and immediately pulls her down next to him.

"John I'm fi-"

"Humour me, Wom." He runs hands over her shoulder and examines the scrapes on her temple.

"Mary, I do hope you realize the man you're about to marry is a worrier."

"Kind of sexy, isn't it?"

"Ew." Wombat's face twists in disgust as she stood. "Ew no. Gross. Sorry John I just - no." He laughs as she dances across towards Sherlock, smiling as his friend lays a hand on the girl's waist to steady her as she leans up to speak into the phone and tell Mycroft it's rude to talk in the theatre. Happiness, for once, is plentiful in Baker Street.


	24. Chapter 24

Wombat hardly makes the wedding. She hurries up as the guests arrive, adjusting the lilac dress as she takes her place by Sherlock at the back of the church, trying to fling the desert from her pores.

"Hi, love." she kisses him briefly, then turns to John. "John, how are you dear."

"Wonderful. Really, wonderful. Just great." He wrings his hands and tugs once more on his morning coat.

"Nervous, then?" she smiles softly and kisses his cheek. "You shouldn't be, John. She's wonderful. Exactly what I want for you." She grips his hand earnestly - a little too earnestly. He squeezes back, smiling, sharing the feeling of anxiety.

"Always a couch for you, Wom. I promised, didn't I?"

There's a moment of silence where she smiles oddly at him. "I'm gonna hold you to that, John. Now get in there."

A priest appears to wave them into the chapel. John gives himself another good shake, and heads in. Sherlock turns to Wombat.

"Holiday."

Her face is pale beneath the makeup. "I've done something terrible, Sherlock."

"In Afghanistan?"

For once her mind is securely in place as she answers. Never before has something shaken her to a point past insanity, past fear, straight into glaring lucidity. "Here."

He puts it out of his mind, tucks her expression away into his mind-palace, and she - like a good operative - lays her emotions aside so as not to let them interfere with duty. Through the ceremony, through the reception, she smiles in all the right places, laughs and tears up at the others. She lets her mind wander through the crowd of consciousness, finding the murderer before Sherlock, and giggling as this vexes him. Only when he asks about Sholto does she draw quiet again. They're in a side room, waiting for the police to depart and the dancing to begin. Holiday has been eyeing Janine cooly for the past quarter hour, but now moves her eyes to Sherlock.

"If it were up to me," she said, gritting her teeth as if sand is lodged in her molars once more. "I would have let him die. "I have no love for the man beyond what he brings John. The way he treated me was…was nothing short of appalling. I was a weapon to him, not a person."

"You _are_ a weapon," he says. He's examining Janine critically. When she catches his gaze, she grins, making Holiday frown.

"Don't."

"Don't what."

"Don't think I don't know what you're thinking. I know who she is too."

"We could get back at him."

She considers this. "Would you tear out his throat for me?"

He stares at the places where the bruises covered her skin. "I'd let you do it."

Holly gives a bark of a laugh. "Well, in that case, go ahead. Seduce her for all I care."

Mycroft calls again that night, and she leaves the reception early to meet a chopper.


	25. Chapter 25

Sherlock floats on a soft boat. He thinks he should like to sail, like he used to dream when he was a child. Holiday would like this, he thinks, Holiday would like to know he dreamt of sailing. It would make her smile. He reaches for her, but there's something cold there, something that has been cold for weeks now - or has it been months?

_Don't you notice when I'm gone? _

_ I notice when you're here. _

Lie. He thinks. Lie Lie Lie.

The boat floats and shifts, the waves dip and rise beneath him, carrying him beneath a soft grey sky. The light changes, dampens the ocean, stills the waves. He sleeps for a while, dreaming of nothing, and when the grey light grows brighter still he finds his ship has come to port on a patch concrete ground. There's a familiar voice bouncing around the fog in his brain, a voice he had all but discarded for lost.

_John. _

* * *

><p>The wall is some abysmal shade of green, like vomit. It circles her consciousness, drawing her in as she stares at it, swaying slightly. Bile rises in her throat; she is unable to distract her gaze, looking away only as she doubles over and up-chucks before her boots.<p>

"Christ." Someone grabs her shoulders, and holds the rag-doll upright. "Operative? Operative are you 'right?"

"I mean," there's another disembodied voice. "This shit was okay when she was twelve or whatever, but she's fucking twenty-something now."

"Maybe it compounds or something."

"Go get Holmes. I'm done with this babysitting."

The girl tries to retain the words coming into her head, but she cannot even find her own. She shuffles through her identities, through the names people call her, but they slip through her fingers like clouds.

"Operative." The voice is back, harsh and irritated. "Operative, is that your phone?"

"Holmes is gone. Let's just take her to Baker Street."

* * *

><p>He has entirely forgotten about the boat. The only childhood left in him is a perverted version of sibling arguments. Mycroft tries to struggle against the pain of having his arm pinned as it is. His face presses hard against the dusty door jam.<p>

Sherlock hisses in his ear. "Don't antagonize me when I'm- Holiday?"

Mycroft turns in time to see the girl just beyond the door way, still wearing dusty fatigues. A bag lands at her feet. She doesn't launch herself at Sherlock, rather moves smoothly. In the same motion as pulling him away, she executes a punch to the stomach that makes him double over with a grunt.

_Glad to see her training is paying off, _Mycroft thinks dryly.

"I just got the most interesting call from Molly Hooper." There is no sympathy in her voice as she stares at Sherlock.

Mycroft sees his brothers eyes widen but doesn't understand why until she turns. Dried blood is caked in her hair, spattered on her neck. It's been poorly rubbed off her face, leaving rusty stains on her cheeks. Her eyes are wide with exhaustion, anger.

"Mycroft," her voice is tired. "They have a report for you in the car. You should go."

He does.

Sherlock opens his mouth, but Holiday cuts him off. "Don't fucking talk to me. Hello, John."

"Wom. Where've you been? You alright?"

Her eyebrows crease. "I've been away. Sherlock didn't tell you?"

"I haven't seen him."

"Oh." She gives Sherlock a withering look and spits out something in Arabic too rapidly for John to understand before slamming into the bathroom.

Sherlock groans. "I have a meeting in three hours Holiday, I need in there."

"Go to hell!" She yells back over the running water.

The bathroom is the first peace she's had in over a three weeks; the past 36 hours are a blur, the 24 before that, even more so. Hopping onto the counters, she scrounges in the pocket of her tan fatigues for a cigarette. It's crumpled, and a little dirty, but she lights it none the less, leaning against the mirror as she inhales. She allows herself to hear only the white noise of water filling the oddly clean tub.

"I need a bath, Sherlock," she says softly as he opens the door and strips off his jacket. "I'm covered in…I'm filthy."

He pretends not to notice the quaking cigarette, the trembling fingers, the shaking hand that rests on her knee, letting the ash fall to the tile floor. "Yes, well, you've obviously been covered in it for quite a while."

Her eyes drift over him as he steps into the tub, only for her to remember she's angry and glance away, taking another drag.

"It's terrible, you know, what you're doing?" The throatiness of her Arabic is enhanced by lack of sleep, but she speaks in it anyway lest anyone overhear.

"Her fault, really."

Holiday gives a pitiless laugh. "I envy her too much to feel too sorry. I'm angry at you for all the wrong reasons. Only I've gained the right to you," she declares, cigarette poised at her lips.

"It's not like I'm doing anything," he replies indignantly, grabbing a washcloth and soap.

"You're kissing her. She's been getting to kiss you this whole time and I've been off-" infinite weariness cracks her voice. "And now I can't even bear to go into my own bedroom because _she's_ everywhere in there, I'm sure." She lets the butt trail down from her fingers before lighting another. He's looking at her with that slight concern but she won't meet his gaze, just stares at that lovely point where his clavicle meets his shoulder.

At that moment the door opens, and she looks up at the ceiling like anyone would if their utterly-platonic flatmate were in the bath.

"Oh! Hello!"

"Hello. Janine, yeah?"

"Yeah, we met at the wedding. Holiday, right?"

"Alison, actually." Sherlock's seen Mycroft act more warmly towards people.

"Oh, sorry. Um, what are you doing in here?"

"John doesn't like it when I smoke."

"Well, could you…?"

It's difficult to tell who has true dominance in the room, and Janine doesn't even know she's competing. Sherlock glances between the two women: slight versus curvy, military fatigues against night shirt. A sardonic smile tugs at the corner of Holiday's mouth.

"Certainly." She slides off the counter, crushing her cig onto the floor.

"Holiday," Sherlock calls as she moves past Janine. Arabic is the one thing he's less apt at, and he stumbles a little. "She'll be gone by tonight."

She affixes him with the same cool gaze she afforded the other woman, her pride too high in her throat to admit how much she needs him. "For your sake I hope it is."


	26. Chapter 26

John is standing in the kitchen, staring blankly at the coffee press. He looked up when he heard Allie approach.

"Wom, what the _hell _is going on?"

The girl - he'll never think of her as a women - doesn't answer, just folds into him. He wraps his arms around her, securing her in.

"Never _ever _suggest anything jokingly to Sherlock Holmes," she mutters.

"Hm. Yeah, I can imagine that wouldn't go well." He pulls away and sits her down in a chair. "Where were you?"

"Getting shot at."

"You didn't get shot, did you?" he grimaces at the cobwebs under the sink, rummaging around for a rag. She waits for him to run it under the tap before answering.

"My unit did. Blown up then shot, all of them."

"And you?"

She closes her eyes as he begins wiping her face, starting with her nose. "Lay there. Still as a corpse for two hours. They'd already seen me, so I couldn't disappear. Surprise attack. They stayed for two hours celebrating."

"Al-Qaeda?"

"Dunno. You remember Tommy?"

"Yeah. Good kid." He was too, as John remembered, lanky, eighteen, lively even in the desert, always trying to make a thirteen year old Wombat laugh.

"His leg got blown off. They wouldn't even shoot him, just…laughed."

John can see her hands quivering, fading away. He gives them a tight squeeze. "Hey, hey it's alright. You're home now." He makes one last swipe at her hairline; her face is clear, but it's still crusted in her hair. A laugh comes from the bathroom and she flinches. He ignores it, focusing solely on her. "You need anymore doctoring while I'm offering? Let's see, ribs still intact?"

She grins. "Yes."

"Um," he gives it mock thought, pouring them both coffee. Neither acknowledge Janine moving back into the bedroom. "Right ankle?"

"Still intact, surprisingly."

"Shoulders?"

"In sockets and rotational," she demonstrates goofily and he laughs.

"Right wrist? No!" The laugh changes to one of disbelief.

"Yes."

"Again?"

"Just…minorly."

"Where are the bandages?" He opens and shuts cabinets, then drawers.

She shrugs out of the jacket. "Why aren't they with 'medical'?" The smile's dropped from Allie's face.

"Seems Janine rearranged some things." he finds them in a drawer and kneels by her chair.

"I'm gonna rearrange her face," Allie growls. The two meet eyes for a moment before breaking out into giggles at the absurdity of the statement.

"So that's it then?" John sticks down the bandage. "No more bumps, bruises, scares, sprains, breaks, uh-"

"Lesions."

"-lesions, malformations, or disfigurements?"

"I think I'm cured, doctor. Shall we adjourn to not the kitchen?"

He keeps her talking to keep her smiling. "D'you remember that tomb?"

"The ruins?"

"Out in the desert, all that blue tile."

_Sky and sand. The stark line between tiled dome and brick like the ever encroaching desert. Wombat ducks through the doorway, ignoring the warning signs in Arabic, red letters peeling. It's dark and cool, the only light coming through decaying window grills of carved stone and holes in the walls. _

_ "John! Come see this!" Her voice echoes up and around, hardly going out. _

_ "Hm? Wom, this isn't safe." _

_ She trails away from him, farther into the octagonal room. The dome soars up above them, capping off the room and gallery above. _

_ "It's a tomb, I think." Her boots hit a loose tile and she stoops, brushing away the sand. An old silence surrounds them as she stares at the centuries old chip of brick in her hand. It's part of a geometric design, blues and whites painted onto bricks inlaid in the floor. _

_ "Wombat, come on," he takes half a step forward and she giggles, the high sound bouncing off the dome. _

_ "Come get me!" She runs backwards. He smiles to see her smile and lunges. _

_ "I am your superior!" _

_ "Come and get me John!" _

_ Their footfalls and laughter do nothing to break the peace of the tomb. They run, chasing each other back and forth, round and round, up a crumbling flight of stairs and into the gallery where - after a while - they stand exhausted and lean on a window sill. Evening has begun to drape purple over the sky, and the mountains in the far distance are shrouded in it, like guardians of stars and deserts, of stories of kings, of conquest, of ever ebbing empires built on painted bricks for forgotten domes. _

"I think that might be my favorite memory ever," she admits, picking at a spot on the couch where they've settled. "There was something so beautiful about that place. We never did learn who was buried there, did we?

"Whoever they were, hope they didn't mind our ruckus."

"Oh, I like to think they rather enjoyed it, the happiness after being left alone in the quiet for so long. Like someone reminding them a little about life." She pauses a long moment, glancing around the flat. "Is it bad that I miss it sometimes? It was just so much simpler - back or white, scared or happy. Now there's love and jealousy and…and pride. I don't look good in grey."

"No, never was your colour. But look, Wom." he forces her to look at him, makes her eyes anchor to something. "That's the way it is, alright? And it's not…it's not bad. It's lovely, really, everything being simple, sometimes. I mean look at you now compared to when I met you - you could hardly keep your mind shut then. And you may not remember now, but you actually really do like Sherlock when he's not being a prat - am I going to find out what all this is about, by the way?"

"Eventually, maybe."

"Anyway, I-" he tried to push back his bumbling nature, to try and find the words. "There is nothing about Afghanistan you should miss. Trust me, I was there."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm just being stupid."

"I'm proud of you, Wom."

Some soft sort of smile brushed over her face, lifting her eyes more than her mouth in melancholy. "I'm proud of _us_, John. You know, we're almost normal."

"Other than the barging into drug dens and getting shot at."

"Yeah, other than that."

The bathroom door bangs open and Sherlock strides out, buttoning his jacket. Next to him, John feels Wombat stiffen, sees her knuckles grow white around her knee.

"Well, I'm sure you have some questions," Sherlock says with his usual air of confidence. Wombat stands and moves towards the bathroom.

"Yeah, I do."

"Oh, you don't mind, do you? I'm going to be late for work." Janine's voice wafts into the living room.

"I'm covered in blood." Wombat's doesn't, it thumps to the floor, a brick of suppressed emotion.

"Sorry love. I'll be real quick." The door shuts and Wombat reappears. She's not calm anymore, but pacing, hardly going a few steps in one direction before switching mid-step.

"Sherlock." John warns. His friend is watching her from the corner of his eye. "What's going on?"

"Holiday-"

"Don't you _dare! _Don't you dare Sherlock Holmes! Do not open your mouth to speak to me right now. Not after," she gestures wildly. "Not after-"

Holiday feels herself give way, she feels the will sap from her bones, the steel leave her hands. As she falls to her knees, her arms wrap around her stomach, trying vainly to keep the plug in her throat. She screams once, loudly. She screams up blood and bombs and war. She screams up jealousy, heaps and heaps of grass-green jealously drenched in muddy pain and the fact that he'll never say sorry.

Sherlock watches her, watching John pulling her up. He ignores the bit twinging inside him and focuses on the end goal. He does this for her.

"You will tear out his throat, Holiday. I assure you."


End file.
